aquatic planting soil?

[ohGODerin]

i was at orchard supply hardware (OSH) yesterday and i found a product like this. could this be used as a bottom layer of substrate in a planted tank? is this what people mean when they talk about "sterilized topsoil"? gracias in advance.

[Damon]

I don't see why it wouldn't work, though I have never used it myself. It may be a little light so you might have to cover it with a 1 inch layer of something heavier (like flourite).

[ohGODerin]

okay, i'll think i'll try it with some flourite then. but (excuse my ignorance) what's topsoil? and where might i find it?

[Damon]

I wouldn't use topsoil in an aquarium.

[azn1stknightsou]

Just to let you know, I set up a pond for my father at his house using a sililar product to the one that you mention. The water lilies that he has in the pond are doing phenominal.

[MyraVan]

I have several tanks (3) set up with a soil + gravel substrate. This is 1" soil covered by 1" gravel. In my first tank I used for the soil 100% sterilized topsoil. This is available from garden centers and DIY shops and is exactly what it says -- topsoil that has been sterilized (I guess, baked) to get out germs and to kill weed seeds. It's very cheap. However, I found that it has too much organic matter for me: the water in my tank was quite yellow for a long time and I had huge problems with algae. Both of these problems are much less, 7 months after I started the tank. For my next tank, I used for the soil 50% sterilized topsoil and 50% aquatic soil, which is the sort of stuff you found at orchard supply hardware. This has been an amazingly successful tank: the water is only a bit yellow, not too bad, and although I did have a fair bit of algae for the first couple of months, now there's very little algae. So a couple of weeks ago I redid an old tank of mine using 50% topsoil, 50% aquatic soil, and this is looking OK so far: some yellow water, some algae, healthy fish and healthy plants, which is what I would expect.

For the 1" of gravel on top of the soil, I use small gravel (meant for alpine plants) from the garden center.

[teitoku]

Sounds easier to just dump a bag of eco-complete in..

[teitoku]

Originally Posted by azn1stknightsou Just to let you know, I set up a pond for my father at his house using a sililar product to the one that you mention. The water lilies that he has in the pond are doing phenominal.

How exactly is that 10gallon tank of yours set up? You do know you've got about 30 gallons of fish, not including the turtles (very messy) in there, right?

[Damon]

Originally Posted by teitoku Sounds easier to just dump a bag of eco-complete in..

For a 10 gallon, yes. For a 75 gallon, it can be very expensive.

[MyraVan]

Originally Posted by Simpte For a 10 gallon, yes. For a 75 gallon, it can be very expensive.

You beat me to it! Simpte's hit the nail on the head. Soil + gravel is a very low cost way of getting a substrate that grows plants well. If you have the money, by all means get the Eco-complete.