A Question On Aquatic Plants

[qwertylol52]

i have a 15 gall tank with 4 platys, 1 cory and 1 rhino plec...on the bottom i have bout 8 live plants and a layer of soil pellets for the plants..whenever i stir the water, the soil pellets would move about and thre would be lots of soil powder floating about in my tank, making it very cloudy and dirty..i only bought it as the store owner said that the plants would grow in the soil, but not gravel..but the soil pellets always make my water dirty and cloudy, so i cant clean up the fish poo stuck between...im thinking of restarting my tank as it has lots of diseases recently...so my questions are :

1) how do i restart my tank? ( of cops i need to recycle it)

2) if i were to restart my tank, can i use gravel instead of soil pellets...would the plants still grow?

 

[Wolfenrook]

Sounds like you have a product that is supposed to be used as a layer UNDER some sand or gravel. Many plant substrates are intended to be used as a bas layer with a normal substrate on top of it, the exceptions are products like eco-complete and ADA Aquasoil which can be used with no other substrate. Rather than restart your tank, just buy some gravel and use it to top your soil pellets.

Oh and in planted tanks any detritus that makes it into the substrate stays there, it gets broken down into nitrates which are one of the nutrients that plants use. Only siphon off detritus that settles on plant leaves and decor.

As to getting lots of diseases, doing a strip down and restart will as likely as not compound this problem. Fish tend to get diseased most often when stressed by poor water quality. Rather than stripping down and starting this cycle once again, step up your maintenance regime and get your water parameters stable, then your fish will be happier and catch less diseases.

Ade