Soil As Substrate

[marcandnic]

Hello all.

I have done a couple of searches but there is nothing difinitive to answer my questions.

I want to add a soil to my aquarium to help my plants to grow. Currently i do not dose, no co2 or anything. I have a few bunches of bacopa caroliana which seem to grow well enough. A few bunches of straight and twisted vallis which often send shoots and a red lugwiga which is currently fighting to stay with me.

I have the old style rio 180 with t8s.

Do i need to prepare the soil - john innes is the brand ive read about on here.

Should i even bother considering i have 2 catfish which enjoy to bury into my sand?

How much sand shall i cap off the soil with? I currently have 1inch of sand as substrate.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

If your catfish dig in the sand then at some point they are gonna hit the soil and you'll have one messy tank.

 

[NewbeeSteve]

From what i can gather, regular garden soil cannot be used but there are other options such as ada aquasoil or as you say john innes no.3.

On the depth side i believe that 1 inch maximum will be ok for the compost/ aqua soil followed by 1 inch sand on top of that.

Would be interesting to have proof of someone doing a aquarium with regular soil

Hope this helps a little