I don't know if this helps or not. I have schultz aquatic soil in my 2.5 gallon nano with c02 injection, fluorish excel dosing, and fluorish comprehensive dosing once a week(although I have stopped with this in an attempt to control thread algae), 8 hours light using 6500K daylight compact fluorescent and 50% week water changes. I have a dwarf aquatic frog, cherry shrimp, and amano shrimp. They are all doing fine and show no ill effects. The plants are growing great. Having said that I am still battling an outbreak of thread algae. I tried to eliminate all possible causes of the thread algae and took corrective measures to try and slow down/reverse the problem. I narrowed the origin of the problem to two possible things, the "type" of light that I am using or the Schultz aquatic soil which may have absorbed high levels of phosphate from the tap water and leached them back into the water in mass quantities fueling an algae bloom.
I also added schultz aquatic soil to my 55 gallon I just mixed it into the regular gravel. At first the water was cloudy from the schultz soil debris, but after a few days it settled and the water became crystal clear. None of the fish died and it has been 1 1/2 months since I added Schultz, which tells me it has not impacted negatively on water quality yet. I do 30% weekly water changes, and use fluorish comprehensive fertilizer once a week. The only plants in there are ones that are hardy and that I have had success with in the past(ambulia, java fern, anubias, hygrophilla, banana plants,etc.,). Lighting is adequate as per 3 watt per gallon rule. The funny thing is that the plants are not dieing but they are not growing either and they kind of look pathetic. I have a UV sterlizer in the tank but don't think this is the problem. I was going to experiment with adding c02 and using substrate fertilizer sticks to try and fuel plant growth.
