[monkeygills]

Silly girl, I didn't read the directions! I got a new ADA tank (@40 gal) and put in the powersand and amazonia aquasoil correctly as suggested by LFS, and I also made a sort of beach area of pure fine sand. Then I planted and put in wood. Then I hated my design. I'd only had sand tanks before so I ripped it all out and stirred together the powersand, aquasoil and sand. I was rooting around in there like a catfish. I like to change things.

I didn't realize I was dealing with clay until it started sticking together and sticking to the rocks I was arranging like mortar. OH no... I stopped mucking about and put water back in the tank. It looked like really dark chocolate. I've been doing 90% water changes evere since (a few days) and running my eheim ecco with fine filter floss and carbon floss on top of those beads, but I still can't see the back of my tank. The filter may be making things worse even though I have it directed at a side wall near the surface. I think I've succeeded in making clay slip. Meanwhile the plants are I bought are languishing. GRRRRR. Any advice appreciated.

 

[plantbrain]

Do large water changes daily till it clears.

Now take your tank and think about if it was 12 ft long........that';s what we dealt with.

Diatom filters etc might take care of it for a little while

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Shadow]

good luck.Im sure Ill be in the same boat. I love changes and Im doing ADA in my 120g tank later this spring. So it will likely end up like that for me as well.

Like posted above just keep doing water changes

 

[monkeygills]

wow

Thanks for the replies guys. I will keep up the water changes and thank my lucky stars it's not a 12 foot tank!

 

[EdTheEdge]

I thought I wanted to try AS. But after reading all of the horror stories over the past couple of months (turns to muck, smells bad, gives you a rash, melts plants, soak it for weeks, the expense, etc, etc, etc) I think I'll avoid it.

How can so many people sing such praise for this stuff? I think Amano has put out a product that was not fully researched.

 

[dipan]

I thought I wanted to try AS. But after reading all of the horror stories over the past couple of months (turns to muck, smells bad, gives you a rash, melts plants, soak it for weeks, the expense, etc, etc, etc) I think I'll avoid it.

How can so many people sing such praise for this stuff? I think Amano has put out a product that was not fully researched.

Yeah, those are hassles, but the bottom line is plant growth, no? It is worth it to many for the plant growth. May not be worth it for some ...

 

[eklikewhoa]

It is the lack of one's ability to follow instructions.

 

[ianmoede]

I have had zero problems with mine in a 55 gallon. Is it mushy; yes, its a clay, thats what they do. Is it cloudy in the beginning? Yep, but most gravels are to some extent. This just happens to be the extreme end of the spectrum. Before you give up, let your filter do its job for a little longer. Then make a judgment.

 

[monkeygills]

it's clay

You're right about following directions, but this in not exactly a user friendly product. Aqua soil is clay, and not all fired clay either. Many plants love to grow in clay, but clay particles can stay in suspension a long, long time, that's what "clay slip" is. I think aquasoil can work well if you follow instructions exactly. Those instructions include things like trimming plants off at the base rather than pulling out the roots. This is from Aqua Forest. It seems that one really has to change the way a tank is handled to have success with this stuff. If you don't like to move things much, if you are willing to put in all your initial plants right away, then trim but not replant; basically if you have a restrained and pre-planned approach rather than my exploratory kid-in-the-sandbox approach it can probably work well for you.

 

[EdTheEdge]

If you don't like to move things much, if you are willing to put in all your initial plants right away, then trim but not replant

And yet another drawback. Perhaps ADA should include precautions along with the instructions???

 

[eklikewhoa]

I find no problem in moving things around...

 

[monkeygills]

replanting

Thanks eklikewhoa, you are giving me hope. Perhaps after a bacterial colony exists in the substrate and the plants suck up some of the silt it becomes more stable. To others: I would listen to eklikewhoa rather than me as I am just starting out with aquasoil and just thinking and talking about it but not experienced. I could easily be wrong.

 

[Minsc]

I uproot plants in my Aquasoil all the time, I just take it slow...
Never been a problem. Sure a bit of a cloud comes up, but the water goes back to crystal clear in a matter of hours.

Supposedly this could be because I have extremely soft water? I've heard AS is more troublesome the harder the water gets...

I would never want to use it in a situation where I would be stepping on it though:icon_wink

 

[plantbrain]

I find no problem in moving things around...

In some tanks, neither do I, but I have 9 tanks with it, some do, some don't.
I think is smaller systems, if you follow the suggestions, it works fine.

I still like and use it, but it's not forgiving for folks that redo things,
It is woefully inappropriate for large tanks like a 12ft and 16ft tanks.

None of these tanks, Amano's larger tanks are noteably missing the AS, can really achieve 100% with it.

You can argue with me till the cows home about this, but I have spent a logn of labor, time and energy trying to rectify things in larger systems without any decent results.

In smaller tanks, you cannot compare on equal terms, there are trade offs.
For smaller tanks, I still suggest using it.

Folks hear one side and then do not think about the other.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[plantbrain]

Supposedly this could be because I have extremely soft water? I've heard AS is more troublesome the harder the water gets...

I would never want to use it in a situation where I would be stepping on it though:icon_wink

No, we used hard La tap and we also could use pure RO, there was no relationship ever seen after many months.

Walking on clay balls makes clay bricks, not mush.
Take some and make a ball with it sometime.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[slickwillislim]

I believe someone thought it was Black earth along with some other things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernozem

I have no idea if it really is it was just some ones suggestions. I think it was Freeman on APC.

I haven't had any clouding problems but I haven't had it that long.

 

[monkeygills]

new experiment

I talked to a friend of mine who is a ceramic sculptor and she explained to me that when you make clay slip you mix a powdered clay in water, she said that if you try to mix regular clay in it doesn't go into solution as well. So I'm trying an experiment: I took all the water out of my tank and I'm going to let the aquasoil dry out a bit, not all the way, but so it skins over on top and hopefully the loose particles will get stuck to the fired clay balls or to each other as a wet clay further down. Then I will put the water in carefully and see how it goes.

 

[plantbrain]

You might consider a baking/firing.
Then sift through a specific sized mesh to get out the fines.
Lot of work, I do not think the drying will do much, I've done similar things when moving and left the gravel sitting out exposed to air for some time and then reset the tank up. Not any difference I could tell looking back.

I know this product, although ADA claims otherwise, is not baked at high temps, it cannot be. The NH4 is rapidly oxidized when that is done in the presence of O2........... and it does not take that high of temps to make clay hard.

And yes, it's mostly clay.
You might try taking a small amount a baking it in the over.
No one 's home right now so I am

However, anaerobic oxidation also occurs for NH4 biologically as well:
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/61/4/1246

 

[paradise]

Tom, Amano does use AS in his big tank at home. We just watched the presentation and it does have aquasoil in the tank.

 

[monkeygills]

determination

Argh, this girl is NOT baking aquasoil in her oven:hihi:
However, I did just go out and buy a bunch of activated carbon, a filter bag, and some extra fine filter material for my ehiem. I don't have a diatom filter... or is that something I can add to the ehiem as well? I HAVE to try and make this aquasoil work... it cost too much! The tank is dry for now because my CO2 regulator broke. I seem to be going backwards, sigh!

Hey Tom, how did your aquasoil brownies turn out?