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*Remembers the day all the hydrocela carefully chosen as a substrate in her tank floated to the surface as she filled it with water...* :lol:

That's where I got mine from, arrived quickly and is exactly as described. Will start soaking it as soon as I have an exchange date ;)

Seriously, I really wish I had videoed the look on my face when the clay balls I bought all floated up to the top of my tank through the sand... must have been priceless :oops: sounds good, if you don't want much then akadama is on ebay (just do a search and look for the stuff like James used...

Right, going to shove my 2p in here as I've been doing this on the cheap since I started and I've made some interesting mistakes along the way :o) Ignore TPN+ it's really expensive for what it is and James has helpfully calculated the recipe for how to make it. Have a look at it hereand then...

Thanks James, the reason I was going to soak it in advance was to reduce the need to do the water changes on the tank. This strip down will be coinciding with my new house purchase/move and (sod's law) the submission deadline of my PhD thesis so I wanted to make it as painless as possible. The...

Hi all, just ordered 28L of this and I'm looking to pre-treat it. My theory is that I'll do a week long soak in ferts and calcium carbonate (will this be ok?) then a week of daily water changes in a trug bucket. Any idea on how much I'll need to use of everything? James used the following...

I had argos play sand over pond soil (just bought it as that from the local garden centre). I had no problems with it until I wanted to re-scape when the 2 mixed together and I was left with a mess. :( So if you're not going to re-scape then it's definitely a cheap option otherwise you can...

That was pretty much it! I knew it was too good to be true at around £3 a bag!

Cost (a false economy it seems) Hydroleca is about £2.50 a bag and had it worked I would only have needed 2 bags for my 125l tank, laterite is substantially more expensive.

Thanks Clive, as usual a well illustrated explanation :D

Complete failure, it's more buoyant that I realised, even after being soaked for several hours. Ah well nice idea while it lasted. :roll:

Well that was a complete failure. It turns out that Hydroleca is annoyingly buoyant, even when it's been soaking for several hours. So now I've just got plain sand and I'll add root tabs under the heavy root feeders if they look like they need it, otherwise I'll just fertilise the water column...

Ah, ok, didn't realise that. I think I'm going to go with an akadama like thing called J Arthur Bowers Hydroleca. It seems to have the required high CEC value without being either exceptionally expensive or annoyingly crumbly :) My theory is to rinse it then 'prime' it by soaking it in some...

Right well a bit of googling later and... Health and safety PDF on Hydroleca - states it's "Brown calcined clay granules" Which according to this site means : It appears that the CEC value isn't as high as Zeolite but is still fairly high. So... I think I might give it a go if I can find...

Oops :oops: I only have DIY CO2 at the moment (though the plan is to go pressurised towards the end of October) and I'm using DIY TPN+ with extra phosphates, will prob be about 20ml per day. The tank itself is 120l and comes with a 25w T8 lamp. I'll be adding in extras as I find I need them...

Is J Arthur Bowers Hydroleca a similar product to Akadama?

I really like the look of sand in my tank and want to keep this when I upgrade my tank (120l arrives on Sunday). Now I've already got the sand (being a student I picked up the cheap kids play sand from Argos), last time I put pond soil underneath it. This works ok but because it's soil it...

No worries, if you pm a moderator or admin (have a look in the members list) then they should be able to move it for you. :)

I'm not sure about the answer to your question but you're more likely to get an answer in the substrate section than in the sponsors' section. :wink: