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For planted tank, iron rich substrate such as Seachem Flourite is good. For fish only tank, any gravel without sharp edge will do. Just my 2 cents contribution.
Hi I have a 55 gal. planted tank that is doing well except the pH is not stable. This tank used to have african cichlids and I left some of the crushed shell substrate and added eco- complete and some aquatic plant soil. I want to replace all substate and I'm considering flora max among others. wanted opinions on this type of gravel. Thanks
For planted tank, iron rich substrate such as Seachem Flourite is good. For fish only tank, any gravel without sharp edge will do. Just my 2 cents contribution.
Last edited by uklau; 2nd Feb 2007 at 14:01.
Cheers,
U.K.Lau
Unfortunately I don't think most of us use Flora Max here... what we have available are ADA Aquasoil, Flourite, Onyx to name a few.
thanks for your input. i was just wondering how much of a hassle it would be to use it. My tank is thickly planted and has mostly tetras. Some of the fish although not hard to come by are hard to keep alive. And with the switch I really don't have anywhere to keep them for more than a day.
It will be messy, but it's not impossible to do.
What I do is to fill a pail with as much of the tank water as possible, put the livestock and plants in that pail and run the filter in the pail. That pail will be a makeshift tank while I do the work in the main tank.
After finishing everything, half the pail can be emptied into the main tank and the rest of the main tank filled with fresh water. Fix up the filter back to the main tank and finally acclimatise the livestock as you would with freshly bought livestock.
thank you that's a great idea. when you use the ada substrate products how do the different layers go in? It's mostly made up of sand or sand like material isn't it? Is there a clay like layer?
ADA substrate is in fact soil... Compressed soil and peat.
The full ADA substrate system includes a 3 layers of different bacteria, a layer of Powersand (which is volcanic sand with laced nutrients) and then Aquasoil on the topmost layer.
Most people will complain about the white Powersand coming to the top of the substrate when they put up their plants. But according to some ADA users, this problem can be solved by adding a new thin layer of fresh ADA aquasoil.
whats the buffering capacity of the ada products? do they keep the pH low or do they not effect pH? I have to imagine they should not be rinsed. Sorry if I sound too much like a newbie but the info I have found isn't thorough.
Fresh ADA soil can buffer your pH to 5.5 depending on the type you use. But after several water changes, it will stablise at around 6.5-6.8. Not sure about the effect of ADA soil used in hard water, but here in Singapore, ADA soil waters has kH of 0-1...
And yes, please do not do any rinsing...
Don't even wash the gravel, it was meant to be placed dry into the tank. Planting plants will require you to add enough water to soak the ADA Aquasoil first (so it is damp and holds down plants) so that planting can begin.
After planting, the rest of the tank is very slowly filled up with water, usually by directing a slow water jet on a paper plate placed on the substrate or something similar.
Have you been to www.aquaticplantcentral.com yet? That's a dominantly US-populated website, so you might be able to find more relevant information. Do look up Jeff Senske as well in the forums, he's the owner of Aquarium Design Group (ADG) that is currently collaborating with ADA to bring in ADA stuff. He is also in the aquascaping business and therefore knows quite a bit about ADA products.
much thanks, will do.
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