ADA Aqua Soil - Tank Still Cloudy After 3 Days

[LindaC]

I added the soil to my 10 gallon tank Monday night before leaving for 2 days in Maine on a business trip and thought I'd come home to a nice clear tank, but it's still cloudy. It's not as cloudy as it was before I left, I could hardly see a plant it was so bad, but now I can at least see the plants in the front but not in the back and I cannot see the back glass.

How long will it take for my water to clear out? The soil feels awesome, however, if it's always going to be cloudy, that's not good. A plant came loose and when I put the stem back in the soil, it kicked up a cloud of dust from the soil. The bag says, "do not rinse". Is anyone else having this problem?

I'm also concerned that the PH is very low, I have one fish in there (apisto-red tail) because I'm expecting it to cycle. I want to put some of the medium from my 29 gallon in the tank but worried because I came home to yet another case of BGA in that tank. I'm telling you, this is becoming a very frustrating hobby for me, it's just one thing after another.

Any help is so appreciated.

Linda

 

[travis simonson]

I just built a tank using ADA Aquasoil about a week ago and my water has been cloudy as well. The cloudiness is slowly dissipating so I'm guessing you'll probably see the same thing after about a week to ten days too. It is not friendly stuff if it gets stirred up

I've also heard that it naturally drops pH/KH (if I remember correctly) so expect a bit of a dip from what you're used to with other substrates. But man, do the plants love that stuff Mine are starting to go nuts and I'm now able to keep plants I couldn't have even dreamed of before.

BGA, IME, has always resulted because of a nutrient imablance. Aquasoil provides NO3 and PO4 to your plants' roots and also pushes the nutrients into the water column so you will likely not need to dose/supplement them, at least for a while. I've been doing regular water tests just to make sure. It is great stuff

 

[LindaC]

Thanks Travis, I'm glad to know that it is happening to someone else. I love the idea that it adds the Nitrate and Phosphate to the water column, this will help me out tremendously, as I still have a hard time balancing my ferts.

I'm actually thinking about adding it to my 29 gallon tank too, even though I have Fluorite in there now, just not sure how I'm going to go about doing it without creating a huge mess.
I've purchased a new regulator and a new Satellite lighting system, so how can I not go the rest of the way and add the best of the subtrates too!

I look forward to the tank finally clearing out so that I can see my plants again!

Thanks again!
Linda

 

[czcz]

Just FYI, I think it's the PowerSand that adds P and much of N. AquaSoil does have ammonium per Tom Barr's tests if I remember correctly.

I've setup 5 tanks (including small nanos) with the same bag of AquaSoil, and they only stayed cloudy for a few hours. I wonder why this has been different for us. Maybe I just got lucky.

 

[LindaC]

There's no nutrients in the Aqua Soil then? Should I be adding ferts? So many people have told me not to.

I would love to add this soil to my 29 gallon tank, along with the Power Sand. I'm wondering how much trouble it would be to do so; would I have to remove all the Flourite first or could I remove some of it and just add the Aqua Soil on top of the Flourite and then the PS. Just a thought, I'm sure it would be better to just remove all the flourite but what a hassle it would be.

Anyway, it's slowly starting to clear, I did another 50% water change when I got home today and it's getting clearer. Someone on another forum told me that according to the folks in Japan, you should do a 50% water change every day for a week when adding the Aqua Soil. I'm not sure how true this is but I didn't think it could hurt.

 

[czcz]

AquaSoil has lots of nutrients; I don't think P is one of them though. The method of no dosing is usually with PowerSand or PS Special, which has P and more nutrients.

I put AquaSoil in a tank that used to have Schultz, which is a lot like Flourite. I scooped out as much Schultz as I could, left a little mulm, and then put AquaSoil over it. There's some mixing but it's not too bad. If you used PowerSand too, you'd want it below the AquaSoil to prevent PS's goodies from leeching into the water column too quickly.

I did 50% water chages twice a week when starting with AquaSoil. Amano supposedly does this much or more during start-up. Tom Barr also does many water changess the first few weeks.

 

[LindaC]

Thank you czcz, that's very helpful, I think I'm going to add the Aqua Soil to my 29 gallon too.

Although my 10 gallon is still a little cloudy, I can see that my star grass, which was almost dead from the black out, is starting to grow back nicely now, there's new growth and it's very green. I think I'm going to really like this soil, I already love the fact that I do not need weights to hold my plants down. I also love the way it looks, so much more natural then the flourite.