Muddy Bottom

[CrashingWaves]

The advantage to using a soil substrate in the tank is, it will greatly improve the overall function of the tank. Providing there isn't any harmful chemicals in the soil of course. The one problem is when it actually comes to putting the soil in. It could take a pretty long time before the water clears up.

God Bless,
Joshua

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

any 1 here ever tried a mud/soil/peat based tank bottom

Peat will change the ph of the water and will taint the water colour-wise, but there are quite a few fish which originate from waters full of peat in the wild and can really benefet from having peat in their tanks .

 

[CrashingWaves]

But then you have to resort to having a "specialty tank", and if you don't have a lot of money to have multiple tanks, that can get annoying.

God Bless,
Joshua

 

[Iron Man]

With the "tree root" background and "soil bottom" her tank is already going the Amazonian route anyway.

Without any water in the tank, you can put some red clay (sold as "laterite") on the bottom and some gravel mixed with sand over that. Then plant your plants, then fill the tank up with water.