10 gallon blue pearl shrimp tank

[bluepearlshrimp]

ok so im new and love blue pearl shrimp so ive set up a 10 gallon for a colony. it will be a dirt tank with black gravel. right now im waiting for the dirt to settle. im using miracle grow organic so im hoping it will clear up. no pics yet unless you wanna see a tank of "cofee"

 

[JohnPaul]

Maybe I am misunderstanding what you wrote...are you saying that you put potting soil directly into an aquarium? That is a horrifically BAD idea. The organics in the soil will rot (decompose), leading to massive bacterial blooms in your water. And the natural fertilizers in the soil are not balanced properly for use in an aquarium, you will be fighting a nonstop losing battle against algae since the fertilizer ratios that are so critical to keeping algae in check will be all haywire. And at a more practical level, I think the "coffee" you have now is going to take forever to settle, and anytime you move around anything at all you'll get the coffee effect all over again.

The only way in which potting soil can be used as the foundation of the substrate in an aquarium is if it is 100% pure with no additives, and then you further treat it to "mineralize" it (which essentially removes the organics), which is a somewhat involved process.

A good article that talks about both of these topics (the dangers of using potting soil "as-is" as well as describing the process to mineralize soil) can be found at Aquatic Plant Central. See that link for more info.

EDIT:

About a year or so ago, I submitted a photo of one of my berried Blue Pearl shrimp that won the freshwater photo-of-the-month contest. Here it is, I figured you might like it: