# Amazonia II plus Regular Gravel?



## rudzki (Apr 1, 2008)

I have regular gravel in my aquarium. The water is r/o and acidic. I don't want to tear my whole tank down as I have well established Fish, Plants and Shrimp in it. I am adding root tabs for the nutrients right now. I was wondeing if I can just add Amazonia II on top of my regular gravel to get its nutrients. If I add them in parts and do water changes to keep the Ammonia and Dust down, would it be ok? I am not worried about the stuff mixing up later.



Erirku said:


> What type of substrate do you have in your tank? I recommend removing and redoing your tank if you are planing to add new substrate. Might want to post this in the substrate thread.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

The dust is really bad! It took over 2 months for the dust to go down in my 125g tank. I had tried to age my ADA A.S. before hand. That pretty much took care of any ammonia issues I might have had. I did have quite a plunge in pH, but I lost only 2 fish and am not sure it wasn't because they got wounded in the whole tank tear down and redo. I have loads of fish so 2 is hardly any loss at all. Even with the dust it didn't affect the fish or the plants at all. It was just a pain for me to look at.

I also wonder how the A.S. on top of your gravel will help. Since the plants will go down into the substrate it would seem that you need the A.S. on the bottom of the tank, under your gravel, not on top. I had had gravel mixed with flourite for decades and just decided to quit putting off the inevitable. I just bit the bullet and did the change with tremendous success. I'm not sure about your shrimp because I had none in my tank but I would say just bite the bullet and do a complete change over.

Maybe for your shrimp you could just get a cheap 10G from Petsmarts or somewhere and put your existing gravel and water in there to keep them until the change over.

Here is the thread about how I cycled the ADA Aquasoil. http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/science-aquatic-substrates/47708-experiment-ada-aqua-soil-change-substrate.html


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

I agree with TexGal, you will always regret it if you don't bite the bullet and just swap out the whole substrate. Growing plants don't get set back much at all by being removed and replanted. You could use some of the removed substrate as a bottom layer, for the beneficial bacteria in it, add some mulm from the filter or the existing substrate, then add the ADA soil on top of that. I would first buy a few bunches of fast growing stem plants to temporarily plant in the new setup to help manage the ammonia leakage from the aquasoil.


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## rudzki (Apr 1, 2008)

Thanks for your suggestions.


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## Left C (Jun 14, 2005)

Can you put Amazonia in a separate aqaurium and treat it it Zeolite for a period of time and then it will be useable in a regular aqaurium?


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## rudzki (Apr 1, 2008)

I was thinking about that too!! How about adding 10 Oz a week to the aquarium? That is better than postponing this project indefinitely, which is what I am planning to do otherwise!


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## mrakhnyansky (Nov 25, 2007)

I plan to get ADA Amazonia2 and power sand, how they should be placed?, sand on the top, and aquasoil on the bottom or power sand on the bottom, and soil on the top? please help


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