Ada Aquasoil

[Underwurlde]

Ordered some ADA AquaSoil, 3L of the stuff @ £12 for my 60L, foolishly thinking 'that will be enough'.

Hell no!

According to the written instructions on the bag, 9L / 60L tank: So if I am reading that correctly, for my SMALL sized tank, I need NINE LITRES of the stuff at a cost of THRITY SIX QUID?!?!? I dread to think how much cost a 'large' tank would require!

My plan for using this stuff in my already established tank: You do NOT clean / rinse it. You first spread some Mulm around the bottom of the empty tank, a sprinkling of peat followed by the AquaSoil - higher at the back, sloping down to the front of the tank. Do NOT put anything on top of it - posssibly sand / gravel in areas you know you are not going to plant in for asthetic reasons.
Q) Can anyone suggest what 'Peat' I should use?

Then you add some tank water back in (using a plate) to just saturate the substrate & plant away. Once done, fill the tank up.
Q) How do you Vac this stuff? Do you treat it like gravel (just vac away) or like sand (disturb it and vac above)?

Many, many thanks in advance,

Andy

 

[MoreCoffee]

Ordered some ADA AquaSoil, 3L of the stuff @ £12 for my 60L, foolishly thinking 'that will be enough'.

Hell no!

According to the written instructions on the bag, 9L / 60L tank: So if I am reading that correctly, for my SMALL sized tank, I need NINE LITRES of the stuff at a cost of THRITY SIX QUID?!?!? I dread to think how much cost a 'large' tank would require!

My plan for using this stuff in my already established tank: You do NOT clean / rinse it. You first spread some Mulm around the bottom of the empty tank, a sprinkling of peat followed by the AquaSoil - higher at the back, sloping down to the front of the tank. Do NOT put anything on top of it - posssibly sand / gravel in areas you know you are not going to plant in for asthetic reasons.
Q) Can anyone suggest what 'Peat' I should use?

Then you add some tank water back in (using a plate) to just saturate the substrate & plant away. Once done, fill the tank up.
Q) How do you Vac this stuff? Do you treat it like gravel (just vac away) or like sand (disturb it and vac above)?

Many, many thanks in advance,

Andy

Andy,

Yes you'll need 9L of ADA Aquasoil in a 60L tank, however a 9L bag costs about £26 from AquaEssentials , so not as bad as you were thinking. I recently started a 240L tank and it took 4 x 9L bags of the stuff to get a good depth of substrate.

I've never used it with peat, so cant comment. In the past I've used it with PowerSand and also just on it's own with some mulm.

You say you plan to use it in an already established tank. Does that mean a tank that already has fish in it ?
If so you may have a problem.

ADA recommend that you dont put any livestock into a tank with Aquasoil for the first 3 weeks. They say this for a very good reason !

When you first setup aquasoil you will get a huge ammonia spike, I've used it in 2 tanks now and each time the NH3/4 reading has
gone to at least 5, it was probably higher, but 5 is the highest my Tetra test kit goes.
This takes a while for your NH3/4, NO2 and NO3 to fall back to safe levels, you'll also get an impact on PH, KH and probably GH.
Basically your tank will cycle again.

If you have a mature filter and a heavily planted tank, things may settle down quicker but I'm fairly certain you'll see large
ammonia and Nitrite spikes and changes to your water chemistry. Any fish/shrimp won't like that !!

I rarely vac my aquasoil as the substrate is fully planted, but it should be possible, you just have to be very carfull as it's quite light. I would NOT stir it up like sand as you'll get clouds of dust thrown up into the water.

Hope that helps ....

Al

 

[Underwurlde]

That helped beyond measured & I thank you for averting a disaster in my tank.

You say you plan to use it in an already established tank. Does that mean a tank that already has fish in it ?

Yes. So in a nutshell, Bollocks! There's ALWAYS something that goes bloody wrong in this hobby! I notice that the web site does NOT warn you of that fact!

I wonder therefore if just dumping it into a bucket full of water for a month (weekly 90% water changes) will de-ammonia-ize it?

If not, anyone want some AquaSoil?

Thanks once again,

Andy

 

[Fillet 'O' Fish]

Mr G
Can you recommend any planting substrate that you could add to a setup tank and put the water/fish back in straight away?

Thanks

 

[Aeropars]

Fillet - Eco Complete, Seachem Onyx Sand, Tropica Plant Substrate. Theres loads.

Underwurlde - Thats the sole reason I havent given it a try. For a new tank its brilliant as you get everything started automatically but if you have any fish its going to be a real problem. I'd suggest going with Eco Complete if your after an all rounder.

 

[MoreCoffee]

The only substrates I've used for planted tanks are Eco-complete and ADA Aquasoil. I had no issues with Eco-complete.
Although I've not used it, I believe Tropica Plant Substrate is designed to be used as a sub-layer, this may allow you to use your existing substrate (gravel ?)
on top. I've not used any of the others mentioned. Red Sea Florabase is supposed to be very similar to aquasoil in texture/size, but I have no idea if there
are any issues related to water chemistry with that product.

Be aware that if you are replacing your existing substrate, you are also throwing away pretty much all the bacteria that has colonised it. This will reduce your
tanks ability to convert waste, so you'll need to be extra careful for a few weeks until things settle down. Maybe thats a good reason to use the Topica substrate
as a sub-layer and re-use your existing substrate ..... depending on what it is (gravel should be OK, sand may not be) !

Note: My own experiences with Aquasoil are based on setting up a tank from new. However, I have just read of one person on another forum who replaced his existing substrate and says he did NOT see any ammonia or nitrite spike when using a mature filter. Maybe large, regular water changes are the answer - I dont know, but would be very wary about trying it !

Pretty much every other advice I've seen says there was a large ammonia spike. ADA's own advice is to wait about 3 weeks. There is also an article in one of the
English editions of the ADA AquaJournal that plots graphs for the water chemistry of a (new) tank using ADA substrates. They clearly show the spikes.

My own graphs for my current tank (still cycling) look like this:

Clearly not something you'd want to subject your fish to.
IMHO For new tanks there is probably no better substrate to use !

Al

 

[Fillet 'O' Fish]

Thanks for your replies MR G and Aeropars.
I did PM George Farmer for his opinion as well and he suggested trying Tropica Plant Substrate, but said he had not used this yet.
I will be keeping my existing gravel and mulm to cover the substrate, so hopefully no loss of bacteria there and my mature filter will still be used.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

According to the written instructions on the bag, 9L / 60L tank: So if I am reading that correctly, for my SMALL sized tank, I need NINE LITRES of the stuff at a cost of THRITY SIX QUID?!?!? I dread to think how much cost a 'large' tank would require!

yup it's disgusting how much it cost for Ian to do his 60 gallon tank with it!

and he had the huge ammonia spike and ph drop too, we moved all the fish to a quarantine tank for a few weeks until it settled.

 

[Underwurlde]

Hey, thanks so far guys & gals, keep it coming in!

be aware that if you are replacing your existing substrate, you are also throwing away pretty much all the bacteria that has colonised it.

Yes, that is why in my original post I mention the strategy of spreading Mulm down first... Anyway, great post and thanks for sharing those graphs.

Let me ask again if I may:
Do you guys think that putting ADA AquaSoil into a bucket of water for 3 or 4 weeks (perhaps changing the water weekly or daily) would effectively de-ammonia-ize it? If doing this does allow the ammonia content to leech out then I could use it straight into the tank, no?

@MissWiggle: unfortunately I do not have a quarantine tank, so can't do that good idea.

Andy

 

[MoreCoffee]

.................
Let me ask again if I may:
Do you guys think that putting ADA AquaSoil into a bucket of water for 3 or 4 weeks (perhaps changing the water weekly or daily) would effectively de-ammonia-ize it? If doing this does allow the ammonia content to leech out then I could use it straight into the tank, no?

Good question: I dont know as I've never tried it and don't know of anybody else who has.
It may work if you do lots of water changes, you could always regularly check the NH3/4 in the bucket.
The only thing I'm not sure of is how much of how much of the aquasoil's benefit to plants you'd lose.
You dont stand to lose much by trying !

Al