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Turning Anerobic soil to Aerobic soil

2K views 16 replies 7 participants last post by  minorhero 
#1 ·
Dirt Tank turned anaerobic:

1.5in Soil
1.1in Blasting sand
2 Mo. Cycle time
Hi, I have been cycling my tank for 2 months now,everyday I take my tweezers and poke the sand into the soil to release the gas. There is alot of gas even 2x a day throughout the entire tank. The only place there is relatively few bubles is by the rooted Jungle val, which is doing well. Almost all other plants that I plant rot the roots right off it.
Things that I tried:
Increasing the surface agitation (7-10 tank turnover/hr with powerheads) adding bubble wands and bubblers including sponge filters. Poking the sand 2x a day to release gas. Water changes 2x a week 25%.

So should I just wait it out?

This will take a while to decompose the organic material.

What do you all think?
 
#3 ·
All dirt tanks will have anerobic conditions in areas with no plants. It's pretty normal. It's why it is suggested only to put soil where you are going to plant.

What plants are you having trouble with and how long did you leave them undisturbed?
 
#4 · (Edited)
Edit: my bad reading comprehension fail.

Going back to your journal and other previous posts...

https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/12-tank-journals/1300185-heavily-soiled-20l-aquarium.html

https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/29-substrate/1299017-sand-columning.html

Things that stick out to me are.. really think it is a combination of all 3 possibilities.

1. Compost you used is way to heavily organic and you should have pre-leached it extensively as @minorhero suggested in your sand columning thread. This would have put you months ahead on tank stabilizing. As it stands with that much excess organic content your probably looking at 6-8mo before it stabilizes.

2. Sand possibly to fine, limits amount of oxygen that can reach soil because of restricted pore size between grains. Combine that with high organic load down there and you have a recipe for hard anoxic/anaerobic conditions.

3. You should have planted heavily from day one. Letting roots aerate soil before the hard anoxic conditions started generating the methane/sulfide which is now causing root/stem rot.

Val’s really are extremely adaptable to these kind of conditions. Their strap like leaves are little super highways of gas transport into subtrate, where around root hairs during CEC process of nutrient uptake oxygen is released as byproduct of nutrient uptake. If they get tall enough so leaf tips touch water surface where they can access all CO2 they want that gas exchange will kick into high gear.
 
#8 ·
What do you mean 18month go of it, I am curious? I do not plan on changing out the dirt after 18mo?

Edit after re-reading thread.

OP: What are you using for filters and/or powerheads?
I have a 210gph powerhead on a dual sponge filter, a 250gph powerhead on one end and a wave pump I put in there to disturb the surface. I have also added and subtracted bubblers to see if it makes a difference * it doesn't except it cleared up the cloudyness (bacterial bloom) i had or it was just a coincidence that it was at the end of the cycle im not for sure.


Add Malaysian trumpet snails. :)
I added some, but maybe not enough. I was hoping to add a seed amount of MTS and they would expand and strike a balance in population.


Given how he types it's pretty clear it's 1.5 inches of soil and 1.1 inch of cap. A total of 2.6 inches of substrate and perfectly within bounds of reasonable. 5 inches of dirt is just silly. No one does that.
Dirt Tank turned anaerobic:

1.5in Soil
1.1in Blasting sand
1.5 = 1 + one half of an inch or 3.81 cm of soil
1.1 = 1 + one Tenth of an inch or 2.74 cm of Blasting sand
So I was guessing alittle more than an inch of blasting sand.

this is a 20 gallon long aquarium with standard dimensions being 30.5 inches long by 12.5 inches wide by 12.5 inches tall.
I have no CO2, I have a fluval 3.0 plant with custom curve.

All dirt tanks will have anerobic conditions in areas with no plants. It's pretty normal. It's why it is suggested only to put soil where you are going to plant.

What plants are you having trouble with and how long did you leave them undisturbed?
I planted spike dwarf hair grass, elodea 2 types, jungle vallisteria, Myriophyllum, Bacopa Caroliniana, and Potamogeton sp. Only the Val has really rooted and expanded all others either rot and float or just stay the same or get slightly smaller.
The Bacopa rotted after 2 weeks, planted little after 1 mo being setup. Myriophylum is growing very slow, jungle val is... well jungle val and growing and filling in quite well. Elodea both types have above substrate roots that do no survive and has not produced roots below surface of substrate.
Dwarf hair grass has receeded in size of clumps and doesnt appear to be doing anything. though I was told this might take a while. Subwasssertang has disappeared, water lettuce has turned miniature, azolla has thinned to small sparse plants. All plants (except floaters) were planted at approximately the same time around 1 month post setup.
The only thing that has done well is the Ceratophyllum.
 
#17 ·
Technically any substance we that is capable of cation exchange (fertilizer of any type or form) will interact with high cec substrate. How much does each fertilizer interact with each type of substrate? How much do plants pull from a high cec substrate? how quickly does a substrate "recharge" from different types of fertilizers? Are some plants bigger draws of nutrients then others for certain kinds of nutrient releases? Does any of this change over the lifetime of a plant?

None of these questions do we have anything more then anecdotal information and they are pretty critical to "best practices". Until we do (assuming we ever do) we basically just stumble along trying stuff and seeing if it works.
 
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