Uncovered Soil?

[r.w.girard]

Is there any reason that one would have to cap soil with sand or gravel?

 

[Zikofski]

becasue it floats around and makes a mess


if you can put it in without water unlike me when i put my under sand substrate in it made a complete mess altho i had no way of getting the fish out

 

[snazy]

Is there any reason that one would have to cap soil with sand or gravel?

Don't even attempt not capping it unless you want a mud bucket for a tank

 

[snazy]

Just to add to the above, that the purpose of the cap is not only to stop the soil from clouding the tank, but to prevent the nutritients from leaking freely in the water and also stop any possible toxins too like hydrogen sulfide and the likes. You do want a cap in all cases, and you are better off with a grain size of around 3mm, not too big for the roots to grow, not too small to cause anaerobic conditions in the soil.

 

[DrRob]

You can run soil uncapped, but it tends to take a while to stop ending up mixing up (depending somewhat on what fish digging tendencies you encounter).
 
Generally only done in low stock, heavily planted tanks. The root systems and biofilm stabilise the soil eventually.

 

[r.w.girard]

I was wondering because of "Tom's Bucket of Mud" - amazing thread, at least the first part of it is really before the rescapes start to set in.  And I was wondering why one would not just want to throw the mud in and let it settle, especially when the tank is going to just sit and sit, without any real interference.  Of course, I had thought about holding the soil down, didn't think about leaching nutrients into the water column but that does make sense.
 
But at the end of the day, dirt is rarely covered with a layer of sand or gravel in the world at large.

 

[SO19Firearms]

But at the end of the day, dirt is rarely covered with a layer of sand or gravel in the world at large.

It's always difficult for me to make that comparison. It's very rare to see something in nature and think if "I put that in a glass bucket it would look awsome", whilst at the same time thinking "I'm sure it would stay that way too...."

 

[r.w.girard]

Oh of course, and the sheer quantity of water to surface area in say a lake or other life-supporting environment is completely unpracticable - not to mention constant water renewal in moving waters - in a closed aquarium environment.
 
Over the past few months, I have been keeping a java fern in a 2.5 gallon tank with no substrate.  The only inhabitants are a few red ramshorn snails (which are tiny) and a few malaysian trumpet snails (one of which has become quite the monster).  No filter, no airpump, no feeding, no lighting, no substrate, nothing.  Just water, a plant and some snails.  Only thing I do is that sometimes I will change a bit of the water to old water from one of my tanks.  And over the months, as a leaves die, they are broken down into detritus that has slowly been covering the bottom of the tank.  Very slowly.  Of course, were I to add leaves and a small piece of wood, that would accelerate the process, I am sure, also adding a diversity of matter to it.  When I disturb the water, the stuff blows everywhere.  The next day, of course, it is all settled.  And, remarkably, the leaves of the plant are always clean.  I am sure that the snails help with that as they move around.
 
I have been waiting for the tank to start to fill up with some kind of little critters and bestioles.  But none have come along.  I was really hoping for a couple of daphnia or copepods to start bopping around in there.  May have to buy some and see how they do.

 

[snazy]

I've seen Big Tom's tank. From what I can remember, his top layer isn't dirt. His bottom layer is Jonh Innes but he's capped it with commersial soil which are specifically produced not to cloud. If you've ever put topsoil/compost/dirt in water you'll know that you'll be waiting months for this to settle to a point of no mudding.
 
Just to show you my pleco below digging up the substrate, there's soil beneath. See my clean leaves. It isn't detritus that you see
 

 

[DrRob]

I believe that BigTom uses sand as a cap. There are other journals lying around the internet that use florobase as a cap on soil.
 
I did use the word "eventually" and I meant it. It really is eventually, and only in low stock tanks, otherwise it's more like never.