making diy "aquasoil"

[gardentank]

20 something? Gallon tank that will be planted. Substrate: red clay 1.5 cups. Vermiculite 2 cups, miracle grow organic choice garden soil 3 cups, plain peat moss 2 cups, organic humus 1.5 cups, aragonite (for calcium and to balance ph) 2/3 of a cup. Bone meal .5 cups (for phosphate) gunna mix this all up and cap it with some good ole League City red sand.

[eklikewhoa]

This would be considered more of the "el natural" approach in plant substrate.

[barberking12]

i see alot of water changes in the near future lol.

[fishman1]

nice also add laterite I've seen this done many times on plantedtank.net hope it works

[gardentank]

Scratch the capping with sand idea.. gunna buy a bag of ecocomplete to cap it with. Then fill it completely with r.o. water, put a small powerhead in there and let her rip for a day or two, change about a third of the water out for tap water, then plant the entire tank bottom all at once with fast growing plants. Fun experiment. Oh ya I'm gunna start with a 24 watt t5 for the first week after its planted and then upgrade to one 125 watt cfl with a reflector (65 bucks at the hydroponics store!!!) With yo-yo hangers... :)

[gardentank]

nice also add laterite I've seen this done many times on plantedtank.net hope it works

I added more red clay and red sand, should be plenty of iron in there now :)

[gardentank]

Scratch the capping with sand idea.. gunna buy a bag of ecocomplete to cap it with. Then fill it completely with r.o. water, put a small powerhead in there and let her rip for a day or two, change about a third of the water out for tap water, then plant the entire tank bottom all at once with fast growing plants. Fun experiment. Oh ya I'm gunna start with a 24 watt t5 for the first week after its planted and then upgrade to one 125 watt cfl with a reflector (65 bucks at the hydroponics store!!!) With yo-yo hangers... :)

65 bucks!!! Brand new!!

[gardentank]

Gunna have to add co2 with the 125watt light.

[sunkenmetal]

Interesting...

[gardentank]

Ok changed my mind again, gunna cap it with less than an inch of sand then put florabase on top. That way I can get a lower ph.

[gardentank]

i see alot of water changes in the near future lol.

And a lot of flourish excel

[Totenkampf]

i am interested to watch this! it seems very nutrient rich, more so than aquatic soil often is. once you get past the blooms it may be great though. i think that i would stuff it with fast growing stems / floaters like anacharis, milfoil, hygro, foxtail etc until the nutrients stabilize. maybe keep a uv sterilizer handy....please keep us informed!

[gardentank]

Ok its planted! I would post a pic but it just looks like cloudy sandy beach water right now. I planted the entire bottom and put some superthrive in the water to get the plants to put roots out faster. It is gunna look wild because I planted all sorts of stuff in there! I can't wait til the water clears. I did 50% ro water and 50% tap. Ph as of right now is almost neutral, maybe 6.9 which sounds good for now because I think its gunna drop.. I'm guessing 6.4-6.5 with half tap water? We will see! Hopefully lower but time will tell. The goal is a fairly low ph without the use of co2, so I will probably have to have about two thirds r.o. to one third tap. I'm sure ill learn a thing or two in the process. That's why planted tanks are fun! Oh ya BTW I ended up putting roughly 3 cups more vermiculite and almost one cup peat moss. I kept adding vermiculite until it felt really spongy to dilute the organics somewhat. Then I 'capped" it with 5lbs (not enough...) Of some expensive as hell 'volcanic ash' stuff from brightwell and about 5 pounds of backyard sand. So for now its got a 24watt 3000k t5 right over the tank. Gunna get a 125 watt cfl fixture from the hydroponics store next week. (6500k).

[Totenkampf]

where is a local hydro store? i was looking for some of those dry fert mixing containers that have the little portioning chamber in the top like GLA sells...

[gardentank]

Where is porter? I'm not sure where one close to Porter is.. general hydroponics floranova one-part nutrient "grow 7-4-10" formula is far better cheaper and more complete for fertilizing your water column than anything on the market for aquarium plants btw! I think all hydro stores prob have it. It's SUPER concentrated. Kinda like thick mud. It doesn't take much of it to get your plants going like crazy!