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Who uses soil? Quick show of hands

Soilwork

Soilwork

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22 Nov 2015
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I'm an another forum from over the pond that doesn't really warm to the idea of a dirtied substrate.

How common is it here? What soils do you use and is it really practicle for aquascaping?

What depth? How do you prepare it and do you add clay etc. Thanks.
 
Quite a few I would say, Amano popularised it in tandem with CO2 with his magnificent aquascapes.Think the Dutch were the poineers though,have you read Tim Harrisons tutorial here "The Soil Substrate---,it explains how you can adapt your aquarium low tech,high tech etc with soil.Gives a understanding of it
 
Thanks Paraguay yes I have read that thread. I have used soil and it was great. Just wondered which was the best to use and why so many used it here but not so much is the US.
 
When setting up planted tanks in others' homes or workplaces, I usually just use plain sand to avoid any possible complications from using soil when I'm not there to fix them. For example, in a newly set up tank with too little plant mass or with fish that disturb the substrate, I find using soil is a surefire way to get greenwater. This would be easily and quickly fixed in my own tanks by attaching my UV steriliser, big water changes or just adding a load of floating/true aquatic plants, but could cause an issue if it happened in a tank I couldn't visit to maintain for a few weeks.

If you add enough plant mass at the very start and don't have tank inhabitants that stir the substrate there would be no issue though. It's a great cheap plant substrate for large tanks where buying proper aquarium-branded plant substrate would be too expensive.

For my own tanks, I often plant heavy root feeders in plant pots filled with soil and topped with sand. I just use whatever soil/compost I have around at the time and soak it for a few days, pouring off any bits that float to the top.
 
Thanks. I'm just curious about how forming slopes and hills work using soil as we tend to not want the substrate too deep.

Would the layer of soil be flat and the raises made using the capping material or do you raise using soil? If the raises are accomplished using a gravel cap for example how would the plants benefit from the soil if it was under a few inches (maybe more) of gravel?
 
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Just planted yesterday. Filter media rinsed a few times to remove the bigger floating bits. It's not soil though. It's garden compost and will float up if there's lots of movement but this will be a shrimp tank in the end so it's alright. I should have removed the gravel first and used them to compact the compost but got lazy. Also thought it'd be interesting to see gravel below once the utricularia graminifolia has taken hold and started spreading.

Compost had been rinsed with running water prior to being placed in the tank but what amazed me was the lack of ammonia, stable pH and undetectable nitrite. And this was after just one partial water change.
 
I have another bigger tank using the very same compost. I cut half of a basket and placed a pint glass below to support the tree and figurine I'll be placing on top. For really steep hills, I suppose you can either just use soil or sawn off buckets to achieve the height.
 
I used compost but wouldn't recommend it for first timers looking to practice scaping because it releases way too much detritus when moving plants around.

I topped mine with aquasoil.
 
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