Soil

[Dorkhedeos]

Has anybody tried this? I have been wanting to try it for a while ever since I have read Diane Walstads book. Just wondering if any of you have tried it yet.

 

[SuperColey1]

Many have tried it and many have succeeded. Only problem with it is that like ADA AS it leeches ammonia for a while so if you have fish and are thinking of transferring them straight away then its not for you. Superb as a substrate under the gravel/sand though as it naturally has everything it should have in it.

Andy

 

[Dorkhedeos]

Thanks, I might try it out for my next tank. Thanks for the heads up on the ammonia leeching. I guess im just going to seed the filter and put a few plants in there for a 2 weeks before I put my fish in there.

 

[algae-king]

I also read her book and tried it out. My first attempt started off great. I had a bit of green water after a week or two, but it cleared up after adding duckweed. Tank was great for a while - all the plants grew like crazy, and were strong and healthy. Unfortunately, because I had a lot of stem plants, I had to do a lot of uprooting to keep them looking neat and that stirred up soil into the water every time which was not good. Eventually the tank became overrun with algae and I ripped all the plants out, threw them away, cleaned the tank, and added some new plants. These plants never grew that well, and the tank was again overrun with algae. That said, I did have some differences in my setup compared to Diana's recommendation: I had no sunlight directly on the tank because this wasn't available to me with the layout of our rooms. To compensate for that, I attempted to use more artificial light. Also, the lights I did have were full spectrum plant lights as opposed to the "cool white" lights that Diana recommends, reason being that I couldn't find any cool white lights that would fit on my tank. So all in all, I'd call it a failure, but that could be because of the lighting, and possibly the uprooting of plants. However, I can see that plants were growing quite well, so there could be hope. I'm now trying a "high tech" tank. Hopefully it works out better, even if it is more work.

 

[SuperColey1]

Doesn't matter which spectrum lights you use. 3500 -10000K. Whatever colour you like within this range. Cheap or not. Same lights whatever the setup. Hi tech, low tech or EL Natural

Sunlight will normally induce algae and help blue/green grow along the front of the substrate (front glass!!)

The reason for your algae outbreaks was disturbance of the substrate. It is very important with any substrate either not to disturb it or to do heavy water changes after disturbing it. Every time you do disturb it then ammonia is released into the water which triggers the algae. In a Walstad 'EL Natural' tank then water changes are virtually non-existent so you must leave the plants alone. Prune them low and let them bush up.

Green water being cured by duckweed would imply that you didn't have enough plants inthe substrate to begin with. the duckweed filled this gap as well as diluting the light into the tank.

I use a pink 3500K and daylight 6500K on my tank. Substrate choice shouldn't affect which lights you use.

Andy

 

[Dorkhedeos]

Thanks for the info guys, never knew stirring up the soil would release ammonia. Does that mean that ammonia is always being leeched into the water even after a few months?

 

[SuperColey1]

Not stirring the soil. Stirring any substrate.

As fish waste, food, plant debris et al falls to the substrate it goes into the substrate. There it rots and creates ammonia. Some planted substrates like clay ones (Tropica, Aquagrit etc) will also soak up nutrients from the water which the plant roots can then access.

So when you disturb the substrate it is like disturbing your filter media. All the dirt is suddenly released into the water again.

Therefore once the substrate is disturbed doing heavy water changes removes/dilutes the release. Not disturbing the substrate means that the ammonia/nutrients stay where they are.

 

[algae-king]

Doesn't matter which spectrum lights you use. 3500 -10000K. Whatever colour you like within this range. Cheap or not. Same lights whatever the setup. Hi tech, low tech or EL Natural

According to the scientific studies in Diana's book, the spectrum does make a difference for both plant growth and algae growth.

Sunlight will normally induce algae and help blue/green grow along the front of the substrate (front glass!!)

Again, according to the book, sunlight does not induce algae when used in conjunction with the other methods suggested in the book.

Green water being cured by duckweed would imply that you didn't have enough plants inthe substrate to begin with. the duckweed filled this gap as well as diluting the light into the tank.

Again, according to the book, floating plants have a number of advantages over submersed plants in terms of sucking up nutrients from the water. Submersed plants can never compete with the growth of floating plants without co2 injection. This is why they help limit algae.

Of course, it didn't work for me. I'm just repeating what the book says.

 

[SuperColey1]

Many theories are different.

If you look at the front of your fish tank along the gravel/sand does it look a little yucky against the glass? This is blue/green algae. This is caused by the sunlight getting to it. Diana is right though becuse it is not really an algae. It is cynobacteria.

To test my statement get some black tape (duck or electrical etc) and cover the part of the front of the glass with it so that you can't see the substrate. After a month peel it off. Is there still the cyno there? I'll bet not. this is because it is from the sunlight hitting that part of the tank.

Bulb K /CSI etc has been a topic of debate for ages and there are lots of views on it. some people say the lights MUST be pink ones. Dianas book says they must be the white ones. Others say it doesn't matter. I agree with the latter to a point. Within the pink to daylight range there is enough of each colour for the plants. This may be because I use modern lights whereas when Diana wrote that book the lights weren't as good. I use pink ones purely because the one I use gives a natural colour to the tank I like. I also have a white light in the hood which I only use to balance the colour for photographs.

Submersed plants can never compete with floating plants because the floating plants are nearer to the light and after they have grown they block the light. Its nothing to do with CO2 its called survival of the fittest. this is the case in CO2 injected and non CO2 inkected tanks

Floating plants are liverworts and are very good for sucking up nutrients but nutrients do not cause algae so why are they a defence against algae? Because if you put floating plants in they block light. with the lower light the plants get they grow slower and thus require less nutrient. So if there was not enough nutrient previously then they ran defficient which was when algae struck. Now they need less nutrient because they are growing slower they don't run defficient thus no algae. the idea that excess nutrient causes algae has long been supressed otherwise all people using the EI method (who dose everything to excess) would have tanks full of algae!!

Anyway all things said the original poster did not suggest that he was wanting advice on an EL natural a la Diana Walstad tank (Who is also a member of UKaps) He just said that after reading her book he wanted to use soil!!!.

I have warbled on with my understandings of the whole processes here but someone else who is into chemistry will hopefully come and fill in the gaps. I have run CO2 tanks, non CO2 tanks. Dosed to excess, lean dosed and used Tropica from the bottle. High Light and low light tanks but I've never used soil. I have always used a nutrient rich substrate under sand. I have read many many articles though which I always try to do as thats how you learn.

Andy

 

[dunchp]

Hi Guys,

Cracking set of posts, a really interesting read.

I have over 100 tanks and have set around 60 of them up so far following the Walstad method. I have had numerous problems with it and would say that I have a 20% success rate so far, meaning that I have around 10-15 aquaria with luscious, beautiful plant growth. The others have not failed, but have needed a bit of work and some tweaking to start to get good results.

Choice of plants are important. Plants which seem to do best in my tanks seem to be vallis and crypts. My aquaria are only 8 inches deep. Pruning is also important, cutting them back and letting them bush out (as said by another poster) gives good results, sufficient plants and low stocking levels are also important. Like another poster, I use duckweed to keep algae under control until the plants take off (it is important to keep ontop of the duckweed, otherwise you will just replace one 'weed (algae)' with another and also as posted previously, avoid disturbing the substrate.

I keep species tanks with rare livebearers and the Walstad method is perfect for this purpose, since starting using it I have really seen a marked increase in the number of fish which survive in the tank but I think you need to be sure what you want out of the hobby and satisfy yourself that the Walstad method fits in with what you want to do (low stocking levels, less tidy substrate etc etc). If it does then it is a great method.