afroturf
Fish Fanatic
I decided after reading a thread by Tom Barr to create my next tank using a soil substrate. The reason that i decided to go down this route was solely on the basis of saving money, time will tell how effective it will be.
From reading on this forum i've noticed that quite a lot of people have started thinking of using this method of substrate and have often asked of the best way to go about it. So i thought i'd show you share my current experience with a soil substrate.
First off i dug up a wheelbarrow full of garden soil and the sieved it to remove any rocks, stones or roots. I then transferred the sieved soil to a large plastic container and covered it with plenty of water.
I left this container for around five weeks, every few days i'd remove any floating debris, gave the soil a stir round and changed the water. Until now when it was ready to go into my tank.
Today, I removed as much of the water from the container as i could with out tipping the soil down the drain with it. Then comes the messy bit of mixing it with the gravel and/or sand.
This is what i used -
I would have used just plan 2-3mm sand/gravel but my friend had a load of play sand which he gave me, i thought this on its own would be too fine for the plant roots so i decided to add some fine gravel which ranged in size from 2-8mm.
I then cleaned the gravel and sand and mixed it with the soil.
For my tank which measures 38" x 23" I used 3 1/2 bucket loads of the mix giving a thickness of a good 2 inches, I may take some out when it come to adding the top layer of sand.
For the mix i used a ratio of 2 parts soil, 2 parts gravel and 1 part play sand.
This is how the soil substrate looks like in the tank -
There aren't really any tips i can give you on preparing it only to try and get as much water out of the container before mixing, it may sound obvious, it would make it a lot less messy. Also its probably not the best thing to do whilst your mum or wife is in the house they're not big fans of people carrying buckets of mud through the house.
So far its looking good took around 1hr to do, plus 5wks soaking and cost me £2.90 for a 25kg bag of gravel.
Regards.
From reading on this forum i've noticed that quite a lot of people have started thinking of using this method of substrate and have often asked of the best way to go about it. So i thought i'd show you share my current experience with a soil substrate.
First off i dug up a wheelbarrow full of garden soil and the sieved it to remove any rocks, stones or roots. I then transferred the sieved soil to a large plastic container and covered it with plenty of water.
I left this container for around five weeks, every few days i'd remove any floating debris, gave the soil a stir round and changed the water. Until now when it was ready to go into my tank.
Today, I removed as much of the water from the container as i could with out tipping the soil down the drain with it. Then comes the messy bit of mixing it with the gravel and/or sand.
This is what i used -
I would have used just plan 2-3mm sand/gravel but my friend had a load of play sand which he gave me, i thought this on its own would be too fine for the plant roots so i decided to add some fine gravel which ranged in size from 2-8mm.
I then cleaned the gravel and sand and mixed it with the soil.
For my tank which measures 38" x 23" I used 3 1/2 bucket loads of the mix giving a thickness of a good 2 inches, I may take some out when it come to adding the top layer of sand.
For the mix i used a ratio of 2 parts soil, 2 parts gravel and 1 part play sand.
This is how the soil substrate looks like in the tank -
There aren't really any tips i can give you on preparing it only to try and get as much water out of the container before mixing, it may sound obvious, it would make it a lot less messy. Also its probably not the best thing to do whilst your mum or wife is in the house they're not big fans of people carrying buckets of mud through the house.
So far its looking good took around 1hr to do, plus 5wks soaking and cost me £2.90 for a 25kg bag of gravel.
Regards.
