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Comparison of Organic Miracle Gro "Raised Bed" vs "Performance"

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miracle gro organic performance raised bed soil soil substrate
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6.3K views 3 replies 2 participants last post by  Mr.Shenanagins  
M
#1 ·
hey everyone đź‘‹ I am planning my new tank and will use soil capped with pool filter sand. I've used the "raised bed" miracle gro with good results, but I was curious about the "performance" product that was also organic.

btw, the composition of each product is a little different based on region of the U.S. I'm in Texas.

here's a photo of how they look side by side. I sifted both and placed the larger pieces at the bottom as an example.

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the performance had a more wet, clay-ish appearance. there were some odd things that looked like insect eggs. it had lots of large pieces that needed to sifted out.
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the raised bed looked quite good in my opinion. it looked like it was heavily ground up forest/tree material. it had a nice orange-ish bark color and was easy to sift.
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I will probably go ahead and mix them for my tank. I might get some large jars and test each soil capped with sand on how well it grows rotala stems.
 
#2 ·
I’ve used the performance organics in the past, but when I sifted I ended up with maybe 10-20% of the bag which is ridiculous. Most “soils” available to us are just filler and trash. So far, the best bagged soil I’ve found/used is Black Kow Top Soil (NOT the manure, the top soil). It was a nice dark black soil. With minimal nonsense, some bark pieces and maybe a stone or two, but it was full of excellent dirt. It’s currently what I’m using in my high tech 40B capped with PFS
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M
#3 ·
unfortunately I already set my tank up! I went ahead and mixed the raised bed and performance and figured it would probably do okay.

btw your plants look beautiful. is that rotala macandra in the center background? and by high tech I guess you mean you inject CO2? do you dose liquid fertz? I'm on the fence whether that is necessary in a tank with soil.
 
#4 ·
mossylake said:
btw your plants look beautiful. is that rotala macandra in the center background? and by high tech I guess you mean you inject CO2? do you dose liquid fertz?
Click to expand...
Ludwigia Repens Rubin. Yes tank is CO2 injected and I dose dry fertilizers weekly.

whether you use inert substrate, soil, or aqua soil, it’s always a good idea to inject CO2. The plants need the sustenance. You can get by without it for a lot of plants, it’s a fine line between success and failure.Nature of the beast to begin with in this hobby, but CO2 is always a good idea.
 
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