# Transitioning to soil substrate



## Latka (Nov 13, 2020)

I am new to Aquatic Plant Central. Please pardon me if I have committed any inadvertent faux pas by posting here. In fact if there is good info on this topic already posted elsewhere, please be so kind as to refer me to the source. Thank you.

I want to transition from an established gravel substrate to a soil-based substrate. After finding bits and pieces of advice on the internet, I finally bought Diana Walstad's book, Ecology of the Planted Aquarium.

My substrate currently consists of 20-30 mm of fine gravel, topped with 5-10 mm of medium gravel, plus all the leftover food and decaying matter that has built-up so far. I purposely introduced a zillion trumpet snails to help turn the substrate. I want to keep the existing gravel, but add 25-35 mm of new organic potting soil.

I started my planted 5-gallon freshwater "low tech" tank over 9 months ago with department store aquarium gravel substrate. A power filter runs about 10% of the time, controlled by a timer, allowing for calm water most of the time.

I have kept ember tetras, least killifish, dwarf rasboras, otocinclus, a few other small fish (<1 inch), a couple nerite snails, mystery snails, cherry shrimp, Amano shrimp, and a couple female bettas. There are a variety of stem and floating plants, including lemon bacopa, Ludwigia repens, Rotala rotundifolia, temple plant, Windelov Java fern, Java moss, narrow leaf microsword, marimo balls, and floating hornwort, Lemna minor, Spyrodela polyrhiza, frogbit, and water lettuce.

I have been soaking potting soil in a bucket of used aquarium water for 6 weeks. I stirred the bucket several times a week and changed the water weekly. Now I want to add the soaked soil to the aquarium, but I don't want to take the whole tank apart and start over.

A couple days ago, I used a turkey baster to suck up a little bit of potting soil out of the bucket and squirt it out onto the surface of the existing gravel substrate. There were small clouds of mud across the bottom of the aquarium, but the water cleared up the next morning. The KH and pH were both low, but I didn't test before adding the soil, so I don't know if the pH was reduced by the new soil.

I want to keep adding a bit of soil with the turkey baster daily until I have built up to the substrate depth I want. I expect the trumpet snails will do the earth moving work and mix the substrate until the gravel is left on top of the soil layer.

Has anyone tried to do this? Is there a better way to add soil to gravel without disrupting the existing setup?

Thank you for your thoughts.









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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

You want the dirt to be under the gravel, not on top. Less mess that way. The best way to do it freeze it. Break it into chunks with a hammer and insert into the bottom of the gravel.


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