! I am wondering if I could have a dirt substrate with RO water. The reason I am using RO water is because our house has a sodium water softener and plants/fish do not like it whatsoever. I also end up getting algae with that water. So what I do now is use 100% RO with equilibrium, that's it. It's worked fine so far. This is with soft water species. If I ever get African cichlids I will use aragonite sand or what not to buffer and bring that gh, ph, etc up. But anyways, I want to dirt one of my tanks, but I'm afraid that the gasses and what not from the soil will affect the water and cause a pH drop or something like that. So what do you guys think?