Question on ADA soil

Hi guys, i purchased a bag of ADA soil to start planting my tank. I just got some questions to ask.

Do you guys add any substrate like pea gravel over the soil or white sand to beautify the tank ?

When you guys buy the plant, it normally comes in a bundle. So we are suppose to take out that black basket and separate all e plants and plant them into e soil one by one right?

How do you guys clean the soil (eg fish shit, food) ? you cant be using a gravel cleaner right?

Thankszz. I realised my question isnt really related to ADA soil, but i cant change the topic heading anymore lol

For ADA Aquasoil you should just use it as the top layer. If you need a boost, you can get ADA Powersoil as the bottom layer, but Aquasoil can be used on its own.

Yes, we would take out the plants out of the basket and then seperate them out into smaller bunches to plant into the substrate.

For a planted tank, you don't really have to clean up the gravel, as your biofilter works, it will break it down into nitrates which will be taken up by the plants.

[sfk7]

Here is a comprehensive video on how to start a planted tank. Take a look when you have time

YouTube Video

THanks will look it up

For me, I used Gex soil for the last one year. Some of the soil may "melt" and turned into dust which will dirty the plant and moss as the SAE and shrimps dun eat dust but only algae.

So for my new tank coming up, I plant to add some gravel on top of the soil just to cover the soil in case it will melt in one year time.

I think for the left over food, you can buy a cat fish... I dun know how it is called exactly. But it eats the left over food on the ground. However, the best is not to feed that often just for the fun of watching the fish eating the fish food.

I also got the Mr Clean gravel cleaner too. It kinda good for me... once the plant or mosses get a bit dusty, I will use it to suck away the dust. =)

Originally Posted by the_r0ck

For ADA Aquasoil you should just use it as the top layer. If you need a boost, you can get ADA Powersoil as the bottom layer, but Aquasoil can be used on its own.

Yes, we would take out the plants out of the basket and then separate them out into smaller bunches to plant into the substrate.

For a planted tank, you don't really have to clean up the gravel, as your biofilter works, it will break it down into nitrates which will be taken up by the plants.

Just want to make a comment regarding the use of ADA soil. Our apologies to The Rock that we have used your post, hope you don't mind.

ADA Aquasoil comes in Amazonia, Malaya and Africana. Each type of soil gives different water parameters, to help create the scape using plants from different river systems. Typically, they are rich in nutrients and hence the results are very eminent, usually plants grow fast.
However, the nutrients in the soil are only as much as the bag of soil can hold. Overtime, as the tank matures, while adding more new plants, will deplete the nutrients quickly.
That is to conclude that it will be incomplete to rely solely on the soils to keep the plants healthy.

The use of Powersand serves 3 purposes:

1. Provides an environment for the roots to breathe, as being granular, they allow water circulation to bring oxygen to the roots
2. Provides an environment for the bacteria colony to multiply, hence consistently providing the nutrients to the plants from the broken down fish waste and fish food.
3. Provides a barrier against the broken down soil on top, which had become mud, to "suffocate" or "strangle" the root systems. They are primarily pumice stones which are very hard.

Hence, powersand and soils are one substrate system, they are not optional items, if we want our substrate system to remain healthy over a period of time.

It is also true to acknowledge that there are tanks which have remained successful by using only ADA Aquasoil. However, one has to look at the type of scape and the type of plants being used.

Best regards

Thio

Sorry to dig up an old thread , but how long does it take to finish cycling ADA soil?

[Jon-san]

Clearing the cloudiness or cycling the tank with the soil leaking ammonia?

If clearing the cloudiness, for me, it took about 4-5 hours. Had my air pump and filter both on. If cycling of tank, mine took approx 6 days.

6 days? Some people say it takes up about a month. did you reuse your filter media?

[Jon-san]

Some were old media, but as I'd left the canister dormant for close to a week plus without running, I doubt I had much BBs inside left when I restarted it. Good thing was that ADA's soil leaked a boatload of ammonia at the start. I overdosed heavily on bottled BBs. Somehow it sped up my cycling. The last time I cycled this same tank, it took me 12 days to complete cycling. For this round, measured the Nitrites on the 6th day and it was 0, surprised me too as the previous day when I measured, it was out of the charts.