Adding Soil, Time To Settle?

[kennygater]

hi i am planning a 2.5 gallon planted tank and have added some aquatic soil to the tank. do you have to put something on top of it because a lot of it has floated to the top and is taking a while to settle. any advice would be really helpfull. thanks

 

[DevUK]

Is this garden soil or special aquatic soil? With garden soil you need to soak it for about 3 weeks and boil it several times to get rid of nasty stuff. I pressume the soaking is so that it sinks also. I believe you also mix it with small gravel or sand, and cap it with a thin layer also.

As for specific aquatic soil, I'm not sure

 

[JamieH]

I would always choose to cover it with a layer of gravel (dian walstead reccomends gravel so that the fish waste can sink between the grains as extra ferts)

otherwise... your fish will stir it up and the time and it may not be dense enough to anchor your plants.