Can forest soil be used for aquariums

[TGOATW]

I'm planning to grow aquatic plants but also keep my costs low, i have a forest nearby but no lakes or rivers. i was wondering if ordinary dirt and soil is a viable choice.

 

[Colin_T]

Don't add dirt/ garden sand to an aquarium. Just use plain old boring aquarium gravel. Most aquatic plants take in their nutrients via their leaves and if you have gravel and add a liquid aquarium plant fertiliser, and give them good light, they will grow.

 

[seangee]

If you prefer sand use kids' play sand. Its cheap and inert as it has to be safe for kids to put in their mouths

 

[GaryE]

There's a whole almost cult-like thing in the hobby now, where people are arguing for forest soil. It's said to have almost magical properties. I'm not big on magic, and stop when I think about the complexity of soil. What kind of forest? Is it acid or alkaline? What nutrients are there? What toxins? What benefits?

I could take soil from my local northern pine forests and it might work. You could have a completely different type of Malaysian forest with different soil, in which case me telling you to do it because it worked here would make me a bit of a destructive idiot.

I'm not afraid of natural things, and feed forest caught live foods, use forest collected wood, collect useful leaves etc. But I identify what I'm using. You would need a soil analysis and knowledge of what it means to do that.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Normal soil can work in an aquarium, and can give your plants a good boost at the beginning, but it has some very serious drawbacks. Read up on the Walstad method (the link is just a basic intro) and see if it sounds like it's for you. Most of my tanks are Walstad-style setups, but I don't bother with soil anymore and just use sand. Natural soil can be interesting to experiment with, but it's almost certainly more trouble than it's worth, especially for a beginner.