Best Clay

[AquaLady]

What are the dos and don'ts when it comes to using clay in the aquarium? What to look for and what to avoid and how to put it in a new set up?

 

[Bert2oo1]

What are the dos and don'ts when it comes to using clay in the aquarium? What to look for and what to avoid and how to put it in a new set up?

I'm interest to see what people have to say about this as I haven't read much about it.

I use clay root tabs for my plants and they work great. However if disturbed they are very very messy


30g planted, 90g Oscar tank

 

[AquaLady]

I plan on doing Osmocote plus, drying out clay the Red Mexican one and using it as a powder and mixing it with soil, Miracle Grow Organic, the brown and orange bag. Don't know if I should mineralize it or not...

 

[Dallascowboys16]

I use natural red mexican pottery clay for my clay spikes. I also used it for initially setting up my dirted tank. It really does have a visible impact on the health of heavy root feeders.

 

[AquaLady]

Interesting. I was worried I might burn the roots with all of the nutrients.

 

[Ruutah]

Following to see if any extra information comes from this. I'm fixing to set up a 75, and I'm seriously considering dirt/clay capped with Fourite and pool filter sand

 

[AquaLady]

Don't use sand with flourite. Eventually the sand will sink down because it's finer putting pressure on the soil (if u have any), leaving the course substrate on top.

 

[Caliban07]

The best thing about clay is it's high cation exchange capacity. It holds nutrients for plant roots.

According to Diana Walstad's book 'Ecology of the planted aquarium'

10kg of a typical soil in a 50 gallon aquarium would provide plants with a 330,000 months supply of iron.

I would say that based on this the clay is not required. I used it for CEC but then the soil has good CEC which gets better over time due to the formation of humus.

There are many benefits to mineralising the soil. Less ammonia production, less oxygen reduction. If I was to use soil again I would mineralise it well.

 

[AquaLady]

That's one thing I didn't do was mineralize. I should have.

 

[Caliban07]

That's one thing I didn't do was mineralize. I should have.

It's not the end of the world. Just keep the water moving well and change it more frequently for the first 4 weeks at least. Your nitrates will go up as a result which will reflect a good amount of nitrification. High amounts of nitrification requires lots of o2 so keep the surface well agitated until this subsides.

 

[Arthur75]

I think to take clay for a different purpose.
I would like to produce tubes for my CPO. For hidden.
Are there concerns?

 

[AquaLady]

Daily wcs?