Soil As A Substrate.

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Underwurlde

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Need some help / reassurances here.

I've been intreagued by the use of 'soil' as a substrate in planted tanks and as a result I would like to give it a try using a Diana Walstad 'El Natural' / Tom Barr mimimal EI dosing with Excel.

These type of setups depend on setting up a 'soil' substrate so I have put a lot of effort into trying to establish exactly what this is.

So far my basic soil substrate will consist of an equal measure of soil (literally dug up from my back garden), Westland John Innes No.2 Potting On Compost and coarse rounded sand (KelKay Horticultural Grit Sand - cleaned).
Q) Feedback on this mix please.

Now at the mo, I have a test sample of this soaking in a pot in my garage. And yes, it is literally just muddy water so I am VERY concerned at putting this any where near my tank (of course, it will be convered by 1" of sand, but you should see it, not encouraging at all!).
Q) How muddy do soil substrate tanks get!?

Anyway, something I couldn't quite figure out was the business of leeching chemicals out of this 'soil' substrate before using it in a tank (with fish).
Q) Some say to soak it for 6 weeks, others to boil it for 15 mins. I would of course prefer to boil it, but would doing so remove some 'goodness' or is a good idea as it will kill any nasties lurking therein?

I guess what I am seeking is a reassurance that this is indeed a good idea. I am not entirely enamoured with this idea of bunging just any old soil in my tank, but this whole idea, when I first came across it, just made sense to me and I have been itching to try it ever since!

TIA,

Andy
 
My tank from 10+ years back had aquarium compost below pea gravel. I put a layer of compost down, then a layer of bleach-free kichen paper, then the gravel. Over time the paper decomposed and I can't ever say I had issues with compost clouding the water. Given that I had probably 1wpg and no CO2, my plants went mad, they grew amazingly well, no major algae problems I can ever recall either!
 
bleach-free kitchen paper... ingeneous!

Where to get said 'bleach free' kitchen paper though!

Thanks nry

Anry. Sorry, Andy
 
I'm currently soaking about an inch worth of soil from my garden to make the substrate for my Aqua One 320 planted nano. I have just used soil from my garden, and after reading Tom Barr's suggestions in his thread the other day I will be mixing in a quantity of sand to bulk up that part of the substrate and make planting easier. Again I'll be topping this off with a layer of small gravel.

I like the idea of kitchen towel to cover the soil base, like a weed liner out in the garden!
 
Yeah, I had the same thought re: Garden liner (I have some left over from 2 years ago after 'the wife & I' made a small swing park for the kids down the bottom of the garden - y'know wood chippings everywhere). After thinking about it for about 2 seconds I quickly dissmissed it as a daft idea on the grounds of 'how the hell do I actually plant through the damn stuff - it's quite tough!

Anyway, yep to the sand (as I mentioned above). Actually as a final layer I don't actually like the stuff I've got. Anyone know of a GOOD looking sand? I like the coarse rounded stuff you find on certain beaches - not the fine stuff. (I have cories as per sig).

I'm currently shipping over from t'other side of the pond some Leonardite ('Diamond Black') for 1st 1/2" layer - or may just mix... Again, I was intreagued by this stuff and had to get my mits on it - it's killing me to get just 1.5lb of the stuff for what would cost me 5 quid equivalent 'over there' (don't tell the wife).

Keep the replies coming... To boil or not to boil, that is the question!

Andy
 
I have no clue if I actually used bleach-free, I can't recall seeing it labelled as such then, let alone now. I would guess there is some kind of 'green' type of kitchen paper which may be bleach free though?

I'm fairly sure ths was something suggested in an ancient copy of PFK as I used to get the magazine all those years back....
 
I must admit, using bleached paper wouldn't be too much of a problem. The bleach used in the paper would pretty much be just Chlorine bleach. We use dechlorinator in our tanks so my thinking is it would be neutralised by the water conditioner we use anyway. You could always soak it in dechlorinated water beforehand to try and neutralise any effect it may have on the water chemistry. I guess more important is to use a plain paper, without a printed pattern so the ink's don't affect the water.
 

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