Ada Substrate System

[ChrisC]

Hi all,
I'm looking into a substrate choice at the moment, and am investigating the Aqua Design Amano Substrate sytem, of power sand with aqua soil on top. I've got four questions:

a) Is the thin layer of power sand beneath the aqua soil really necessary? What purpose does it fulfill?
b ) How does it rate to a cheaper alternative, for example Eco Complete? What are your opinions on the matter?
c) Is it worth adding substrate fertiliser (such as JBL's 7 balls) during the substrate setup?
d) For a 80cmx30cm tank (40cm high), what quanitities would you recommend? According to the calculators, I will need:

1x 2L bag of Power Sand M.

1x 9L bag of Aqua Soil & 1x 3L bag of Aqua Soil.

Could I get away with just 9L of aqua soil though and save myself £13?

Comments apreciated.
Chris

 

[plantbrain]

I've not liked the fine stuff, the ADA medium ADA aqua soil is all I use.
The finer stuff is like dust and I do not think it affords any better growth etc. I grow HC rugs easily with the medium size.

I think that the ADA product is much better than the EC.
But I have not found much use for the other ADA substrate products, many just use them because they do not know if they work or not for them, not realizing that it's the ADA aqua soil rather than so much the power sand that's giving them to good growth over time.

You may add nutrients via the cheaper KNO3 , KH2PO4 etc or wait till the PS runs out after a month or two. If you pull up plants and have PS, you'll see it all over the place and it's not aesthetioc having two sizes of substrate and ugly white pumic with the black Aqua soil.

If you are real bad about dosing, PS might be something to consider and if you have lower light and a fatter wallet.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[ChrisC]

I've not liked the fine stuff, the ADA medium ADA aqua soil is all I use.
The finer stuff is like dust and I do not think it affords any better growth etc. I grow HC rugs easily with the medium size.

I think that the ADA product is much better than the EC.
But I have not found much use for the other ADA substrate products, many just use them because they do not know if they work or not for them, not realizing that it's the ADA aqua soil rather than so much the power sand that's giving them to good growth over time.

You may add nutrients via the cheaper KNO3 , KH2PO4 etc or wait till the PS runs out after a month or two. If you pull up plants and have PS, you'll see it all over the place and it's not aesthetioc having two sizes of substrate and ugly white pumic with the black Aqua soil.

If you are real bad about dosing, PS might be something to consider and if you have lower light and a fatter wallet.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Hi Tom,
thanks for the useful info. I have had a quick look at the ADA Aqua Soil "powder", but from the comments I've heard about Aqua Soil Medium being almost too fine anyway, so I can't understand the logic behind a finer version, I'd have thought it compacts? It is also significantly more costy over here.

What you say about the Power Sand mixing with the Aqua Soil is very interesting, and as I am someone who will be likely to aquascape their tank more then once, this would be a problem. Having read what Power Sand actually is, I can't help but think that it could be DIYed very simply by mixing:

Eheim's Ehfilav

with Eheim's Torf Peat Pellets

As from what I can see, Power Sands' three functions are (how the DIY version solves them in Italics):

a) maximise substrate circulation by mixing substrate sizes. The volcan rock bits would fulfill this function
B) provide a good growing surface for nitrobacteria. The volcan rock bits would fulfill this function
c) to soften the water slightly The Peat Pellets would fulfill this function

This could then be separated with a gravel seperartor?

I see a certain amount of experimentation coming on....
Thanks,
Chris

 

[plantbrain]

No, PS has NPK in it, that's the main aspect.
Otherwise yes to the above concotion.

It's soaked and has some osmocoat type long term ferts in there.
Again, not hard to DIY either.

But why bother?
ADA AS has some macro nutrients it it as well, just not as much for the start up phase, but there is a lot more of it and you do not have as much nutrients in the start up is all, so you add KNO3/KH2PO4 and traces/GH etc as needed instead, which is very cheap and then you have the same homogenous material for the substrate instead of a tacky two tone gravel mess.

Some folks have used a stainless steel mesh to hold the PS down in fear of such mixing. It works and is a good idea.
Too much trouble for myself and there's no real effectiveness for me, if I want faster healthy growth, I'll add nutrients to both places, not just the sediment.

That does not make much sense to me in terms of maximizing growth.
If you do not want max growth, then reduce lighting.

Otherwise, we should provide plants with nutrients everywhere not just in the substrate.

Folks that insist on the substrate only and insist that water column ferts = algae or that KNO3 dosing harms fish have clearly missed the boat here. It does not make sense experimentally(a point the supporters of such methods clearly have not performed and conitue to ignore), the research(there's a large swath of journal science articles suggesting lots of nutrients leak from the sediment due to plants and leaching) nor the common sense and logic behind it.

Plants need more nutrients than algae and only certain environmental cues will induce algae consistently, not just "excess nutrients" in general. Such lack of specifics tells you right away they do not know what is going on and have not done individual test.

But they also have the gall to argue with me about it and me suggesting not to test.
Ironic ain't it?

It's not like I've just figured this out either nor many others that have long used water column ferts, everyoen does to some degree, I've done many of the same test to see if PO4 or NO3 or Fe cuases algae of any sort. After 10-15 years, and many tanks and trying to induce algae on purpose at very high light, lots of CO2, or the other extremes and those in between, where is my algae?

It's not like I did this a few times 20 years ago and got lucky.
Many folks(in thr 1000's at least) have been doing EI for a long time with obvious success and simplicity, not just me.

For X to cause Y, I need some verification.

When I do a fair test, isolate the variable in question, I've never gotten the algae bloom result.
When I added progressively higher fish loads, NH4, varied the CO2 a great deal, uprooted and then not follow with a water change for a day or two, I had algae blooms consistently.

To me this suggests strongly that NH4/and varying the CO2 with high light are the best ways to induce algae, whereas I can say that adding Excess nutrients(K+, GH, NO3, PO4, Traces) over a very wide range definitely does not induce algae in or of themselves.

CO2 is about 95% of the algae related issues.
Few folks that disagree with me are willing to engauge upon a test to see if they might prove such test to themselves and then see what they think about the results.

If they do they lose the arguement but.........they learn something new and very useful....which is more fun and powerful for the hobby.

Just do a lot of focusing on CO2 if you use it.
Less light is better than more.
Lots of plants from day one.
Basic stuff core stuff.
Folks get lost on micromanagement all too easily.
Watch the plants and algae.
They tell you what you need to do.



Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Graeme Edwards]

Why not put a thin dusting of peat and a dusting of dormant bacteria like ADA bactar 100 or even cheaper some mulm form a mature filter/tank and add the aqua soil over the top. You then have backteria to help the nitrogen cycle which will be feeding on the rotting peat dust in the intial stages of start up. This should be a good start along side EI firtilizing.

Regards,
Graeme.

 

[plantbrain]

That's generally what I suggest and do, but few seem to listen nor do it

Send me 15$ and I'll send fresh mulm in a tiny little bottle also
And a bag peat for and pumice and osmocoat for the nice price of 20$ for a small bag.

We tested the contents of PS.
I'm not sure what folks expected they'd find inside it, but plant nutrients.

The AS is good because it's soft clay unlike EC and Flourite etc and it has added tannin and nutrients as well.
It's not so soft as to cloud the water, but not so hard to cause issues for plant roots.
the grains are also large enough to prevent pockets of aerobic conditions.

After a few months, the mulm will make a fine layer in the AS anyway like the finer AS "dust".
The fine AS is based on the capping idea, locking the nutrients of the PS down there.

That premise has several serious flaws and based on the idea of algae fears. But on the other hand it makes some sense to retain the nutrients there since the water column is still having large water changes done weekly and would remove the nutrients faster.

Or you could simply cut to the chase and dose the water column to begin with and not have this funky 3 different tacky laying system.

Stick with one main material and go with that.
I do not think you get betetr growth with the other added features unless you do limit the water column in both cases(with and without the PS).

But then it's not a fair comparison, if you have two tanks, one limited by nutrients and the other not, clearly the non limited tank will do better.

Does not matter where the nutrients originate(water or the sediment).

Capping is a contradictory notion if you uproot plants and claim on the other hand that you add PS to allow O2 to the roots while capping the very link to the source of O2 above.
Plants can and do import O2 from above, so one of these notions that is claimed by ADA must be incorrect!

Either you want anaerobic conditions down there and retain the nutrients or you want aerobic conditions.

While ADA makes a nice soft material for growing plants, it does not imply they are telling you anything that makes sense or that they have a good understanding about the geochemical nature of what is occuring with their product.

It works, it sells, that's the main thing that interest them from what I can tell.

Regards,
Tom Barr









Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[ChrisC]

Does not matter where the nutrients originate(water or the sediment).

Doesn't that support the idea of the planted aquarist saving his money and using an inert cheap gravel substrate, with just an increased water column dosing regime?

Chris

 

[plantbrain]

Does not matter where the nutrients originate(water or the sediment).

Doesn't that support the idea of the planted aquarist saving his money and using an inert cheap gravel substrate, with just an increased water column dosing regime?

Chris

Yes and no.

It supports it with some plants and does not offer as much wiggle room in dosing, basically providing a larger range of abuse you can do to the tank and higher lighting you can use without issues.

It does not state that you must have this or that substrate, but that it will make it easier to grow and faster to grow certain species, while others do not care as long as they have some nutrients somewhere.

Reality is that many folks forget to dose here and there.
So this is a good back up plan.

Plants take up nutrients from their roots, so we can add some there, they take it up from the water column also, they will take it up there.

That is the best approach, combining both methods into one.
You get the maximum from both and the least amount of hassle.
Also, when selecting a substrate, it's not something you will likely want to replace.

Some prefer Flourite, some like ADA AS.
Both are good and better than sand plain for a number of plant species.

I used plain sand for many years, thus I became well versused with the water coilumn.
I switched over the gravel and had much better results and ease of care, better development.
I compared the Flourite to the sand and then compared the Flourite and various other substrates to the AS.

Unless you have a base line to compare to, it's hard to say if plain sand or flourite/AS etc are better or not, you have no other comparison to judge from.

Many aquarist fall into this group and many have never used plain sand(espeically the newer crowd).
Still, gieven the cost, it's still pretty good for what you get for the ADA Aqua soil.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[JamesC]

Been reading this thread with great interest as I just use an inert quartz sand as my substrate and get pretty good results. I do shy away from plants like crypts and amazon swords and stick with stem plants though. Saying that I've had great success with both crypts and swords. Had a sword a while ago that grew so large I had to remove it.

Would have to totally agree with Tom regarding the dosing. I really do have to keep up with it as there is little room for error. The one real big plus I like with quartz sand, apart from being cheap, is that it is very easy to plant with because of it's weight which holds new plants down really well.

I have thought several times about changing the substrate, but then decided that what I'm doing works so will carry on with what I've got.

James