Adding new aqua soil to a cycled tank

[Renz]

One of my tanks has been established with a sand/rock substrate but I was hoping to add some plants which require an aqua soil or equivalent.  Is there a way to add aqua soil without running the risk of  throwing my water parameters out of balance and/or causing any undue stress for my fish?  If not I still have a bunch of epiphytes and floating plants in there.  Many thanks for any guidance.

[Pepere]

Sure.   You dont need to remove and replace everything to get benefit.  I have simply excavated and area I wanted some, poured in that area and capped with the pre existing substrate.  I have also  placed a little aquasoil in a mesh bag and rolled it up like a log and made a trenchin the substrate and put it in and covered it.  I have also simply covered gravel substrate with it to about 1/4 inch and then used an aquascaping tool to push up and down over area till soil was pushed down below substrate level fo planting a foreground carpet…

[Lennie]

I find this quite risky personally. Because it leeches ammonia a lot. At least my tropica one does.

there has been times Ive seen ammonia leeching lasting up to 3 weeks even with installing a filter on day one with established media and water changing pretty often

[Pepere]

On 1/25/2024 at 5:00 AM, Lennie said:

I find this quite risky personally. Because it leeches ammonia a lot. At least my tropica one does.

It is a relative risk insofar as it is dose dependent.  If you have a well cycled tank and filter, and you are excavating say 10-12 square inches of substrate and placing maybe a 1/3 to 1/2 cup of aquasoil and recovering with substrate I have not been able to discern any ammonia issues with ADA ammazonia.  Neither have I picked up with issues after placing 1/4 in thick layer of ADAAmazonia over 24 square inches of substrate and using an aquascaping tool to stir standard aquarium gravel to let the soil granules  to sink below the gravel.

Other soils might pose more of an issue, and I would not advocate a wholesale excavation of entire substrate in short time period..  To simply supplement a single plant with Ammazonia, I have not seen a problem even when testing afterward.  Ymmv…

[Mmiller2001]

I’d ask which plants you are using that need an aqua soil.

[Renz]

Thank you everyone for all your helpful input!  I'll have to give this some thought.  I was thinking I might add some Rotala Narrow Leaf Sp. Red into my 75 gallon tank which currently is a sea of green plants and mosses, but I'm leaning towards sticking with the existing inert substrate and not risk it at all.  Again, many thanks for your insights.

[knee]

Just want to add that controsoil doesn't leech ammonia or if it did, it's very little and not even noticeable. I've added about half a bag (I had the 10L bag) on my 20 long to increase height because my plants were getting uprooted and didn't encounter any problems.  

[Galabar]

Eco Complete could be a good option.  It won't leach ammonia and might hold nutrients a bit better than the sand.  However, you could simply add some along with the current sand substrate (or slowly replace some of the sand).

 

[Lennie]

 

On 1/26/2024 at 3:23 AM, Galabar said:

Eco Complete could be a good option.  It won't leach ammonia and might hold nutrients a bit better than the sand.  However, you could simply add some along with the current sand substrate (or slowly replace some of the sand).

 

Not with goldfish I would say. These guys are prone to hurt themselves by any slight thing. As there is a confusion between keeping cories and stuff on eco complete, I understand that its sharp? My goldfish always poke on the substrate and sometimes even try to take it into their mouth and spit back

 

On 1/26/2024 at 1:47 AM, Renz said:

Thank you everyone for all your helpful input!  I'll have to give this some thought.  I was thinking I might add some Rotala Narrow Leaf Sp. Red into my 75 gallon tank which currently is a sea of green plants and mosses, but I'm leaning towards sticking with the existing inert substrate and not risk it at all.  Again, many thanks for your insights.

I would not use aquasoil with goldfish too. I personally find it very hard to clean and as a goldfish owner you probably understand what I mean. Beautiful tank mate. Do they make any attempt to eat any of these plants? Especially pothos roots? I may try adding some of these to my goldfish tank

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/24/2024 at 7:12 PM, Renz said:

One of my tanks has been established with a sand/rock substrate but I was hoping to add some plants which require an aqua soil or equivalent.  Is there a way to add aqua soil without running the risk of  throwing my water parameters out of balance and/or causing any undue stress for my fish?  If not I still have a bunch of epiphytes and floating plants in there.  Many thanks for any guidance.

I just did this on my tank, not the first time, won't be the last.  Swapping substrate is extremely intimidating for some, but it's very easy and doesn't cause a ton of issues.

There's a few things to note here, as mentioned, you need to figure out if the active substrate will leech anything or absorb anything from your water.  Some don't and some need a few water changes.  I even have seen a method from another forum where they cycle it in a bucket for a little bit.

The best practice is going to be to remove the fish and the plants and then do your work that you need to do. 
1.  Drain 2-3 buckets of water (or totes)
2.  Fish in one bucket, plants in another, hardscape in another.
3.  Make sure the filter media stays wet and move the fish to a quiet corner with an airstone and a lid.
4.  Drain the tank as far as you can, double check for critters and fry. Make a hole with the substrate so you can drain below the level of the substrate. 
5.  Remove whatever substrate need be in layers as best you can (more buckets helps again, it's a lot I know)
---> Or, push it all to one side in a big pile, then add the new base layer to the opposite side... then move the old stuff on top of the new base layer and repeat for the other side.

6.  Fill up the tank, do 1-2 water changes if you need to do so.  This is the point where you drain the tank to plant or plant the tank while it's full.  Add in the hardscape, etc.
7.  Add in your bacteria starter if you wish.  Run the filter for about 45-60.  You can also add in a clarifier at this point as well.
8.  Once you're satisfied with water parameters, add the fish back in.   You can drip acclimate if you wish.

Sidenote: how you prep the soil is critical here as well. so keep that in mind as well as if you don't rinse it / add it to a full tank, you're going to end up with mud... shown above.  Given how a lot of substrate is shipped, it just comes in with a lot of squished portions.

Edited January 26 by nabokovfan87

[Scapexghost]

Freeze the aquasoil in an ice tray and push the cubes into the substrate

[Renz]

On 1/25/2024 at 8:34 PM, Lennie said:

 

Not with goldfish I would say. These guys are prone to hurt themselves by any slight thing. As there is a confusion between keeping cories and stuff on eco complete, I understand that its sharp? My goldfish always poke on the substrate and sometimes even try to take it into their mouth and spit back

 

I would not use aquasoil with goldfish too. I personally find it very hard to clean and as a goldfish owner you probably understand what I mean. Beautiful tank mate. Do they make any attempt to eat any of these plants? Especially pothos roots? I may try adding some of these to my goldfish tank

As you can imagine my goldfish will passively pick at anything I put in the tank.  They used to strip the roots off of the water lettuce till I got so many of them they couldn't keep up.  The pothos has been doing well in there since the start; I even trimmed the roots myself to promote new growth.  I have to point out that the pothos  are in some boxy black aquarium plant holders from Amazon that aren't exactly esthetically pleasing, but they protect a good portion of the root system.