Adding ADA soil to a stocked tank?

[waddo]

I'm thinking about changing my gravel to ADA aqua soil; trouble is I have a bunch of fish and shrimp enjoying a peaceful life. I can probably remove the plants and gravel with the fish still in there, but has any one tried adding the soil to a tank with water and fish?

Cheers

[steven p]

Cycle it in a bucket first. From what I understand that soil will leach all sorts of ammonia.

[GeToChKn]

Amazonia will leech ammonia for 4-10 weeks, so you can't add it to a tank. It will also lower your pH alot, so make sure the fish/shrimp you have can deal with a pH.

[HD Blazingwolf]

Bare minimum expect ammonia to be present in untolerable levels for 2 weeks assuming ur bio filter strong.

So if u do this large daily water changes are a MUST..

Preferrably, get a couple buckets with airstones and drop a small piece of bio media in each bucket from ur filter this will help the soil become colonized and will reduce the ammonia phase

[freph]

Originally Posted by HD Blazingwolf

Bare minimum expect ammonia to be present in untolerable levels for 2 weeks assuming ur bio filter strong.

So if u do this large daily water changes are a MUST..

Preferrably, get a couple buckets with airstones and drop a small piece of bio media in each bucket from ur filter this will help the soil become colonized and will reduce the ammonia phase

Not sure if I got lucky or what, but here's my experience with it.

20L that was previously heavily planted went from fully carpeted to 5-6 bunches of HC and had an entire stem section replanted. Added an entire top dressing of powder aquasoil on top before I planted the HC. Did once weekly water changes on it and only had about 5 shrimp deaths. Could have been natural or could have been from the soil. Either way, if you bio filter is heavily established already I wouldn't worry about it. It should be converting the ammonia well and your plants will be processing some of it too. Worst thing that happens is very small trace amounts of ammonia and quite high levels of nitrate. I dosed micros, P and K while this was going on and got great plant growth from the boosted N levels just by balancing the ferts out.