# Is this substrate ok to use?



## Moose-Factory (Feb 13, 2008)

Hi, I'm currently setting up my first 55 gal planted tank.

I'm going with Diana Walstead's "low tech" natural approach.

For my substrate I am using regular topsoil, 1.5" and then a gravel layer, also 1.5".

The gravel I got consists of 1mm uniform granuals. Walsteads book said to go for 2-4mm granuals and not to use sand. However the dude at the store said what I got would be good for growing plants. Is he right or is what I got too small?

Also, I live in the Boston area and I also asked the same guy what the municipal water is like here. He said that Boston's water is soft, but with an artificially high ph added by the city to keep peeps's pipes in good condition. What does this mean for me? I've heard softwater tanks are difficult to grow plants in for natural setups with no fertilizing regimen.

I thought about adding lime to my substrate to address this. I got a bag in the form of "peletized dolimite lime" (not powdered). Will this provide all the missing nutrients from softwater? And what does an artificially high city water ph mean for me? How much should I add?

Thank you!


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## mommyeireanne (Oct 24, 2007)

Sure looks like what she suggested, pelleted d. lime being preferred over powdered. Crushed sea shells & oyster grit are also named. In her book, Ms Walstad reports having mixed approximately 1/2 cup of lime to each gallon of dirt (about a 1:38 ratio), and that measurements need not be exact.

I'm not sure myself about addressing the initial pH. Soft water means that pH will make larger swings as the plants do their thing, and you don't want that. You want everything to be stable, balanced. And from reading the book, I now understand how all plants do better in hard water. The book mentions considering lowering the pH if it's above 8 for artificially increased pH, but only with water changes, not all the time in the tank. It was mentioned somewhere that the pH increased at water treatment plants was to maintain pipes. I left well enough alone, because I have very hard water, and all of my plants and animals have been living with it. I think you might try a bottle test with your soil and water mix to see how long it takes the GH/KH to come up before you put plants in. Then, if it's more than a week, you could maybe add a little Bicarbonate of Soda (Baking Soda) to the water. This is not in the book, but the only solution I can think of at the moment. I say about a week because the first few weeks are critical to growth to get the jump on algae. You want to do everything you can to get those plants growing quickly. I'm betting the lime will work fast enough, though.


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

What is the actual pH, GH and KH of the tap water?
What does the water company add to raise the pH?


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## Moose-Factory (Feb 13, 2008)

hey guys, thanks for the replies.

I just got my water test kit in today, and the news isn't good.

My test of my tap water here (I have yet to set up the aquarium):

GH: 1 - 1.5 dH
KH: 1 - 1.5 dH
PH: 7.3

Now, a test of a 1 gal bottle to which I added my topsoil and sand / gravel top layer to, with the addition of a small amount of pelletized lime to the soil, and a small plant:

(created this jar 5 days ago)

GH: 1 - 1.5 dH
KH: 1 dH
PH: 7


Ok, so with the bad news in (this seems like extremely soft water to me) what should I do? Is a natural setup even possible with this kind of water? How limiting will this be? Where, how much, and what do I need to add to my 55 gal tank (when I set it up) to make this feasable? The peletized lime I added didn't seem to do much, but then again it could still all be locked in the soil layer of the jar. Does lime raise GH, KH, or both? What about baking soda like someone mentioned? Is there anything I can add to the tank upon setup that will permanently raise my GH and KH levels so that I don't need to continuously dose something? 

Thanks for all help in advance!


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## Moose-Factory (Feb 13, 2008)

Alright, so I just did a little more reading. Diana sugggest in her book that softwater is deficient in these minerals:

Calcium
Bicarbonate
Cl (is that chlorine?)
Potassium
Magnesium
Sulfur

She suggests using CaCO3 to increase calcium. What is the laymans name for a substance containing calcium that I can readily add to my tank? How much should I add (55 gal) and where? In the substrate? In the water? a filter bag?

P87 also suggests using potash to increase Potassium levels. 1/8 tsp for every gallon. However, it doesn't specify if this is to be dissolved in the the water or burried in the substrate. ???

For Magnesium, she suggests MgSO4*7H2O, Epsom Salt. Dosage is not specified, nor is manner of addition (substrate, filter bag, or water). So how much epsom salt to add and where?

Next, what should I add to bring up the remaining deficient ingredients I listed?

For HC03, bicarbonate, is this what baking soda is for? How much should I add for a 55 gal?

And what about S, sulfur? What and how much should I add to increase this? Or is this in fish food?

And Cl? What is Cl and how much do I need?


Thanks for all your help with my extremely soft water!!!


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## mommyeireanne (Oct 24, 2007)

I'm gonna take a stab at this, so bear with me. Maybe someone more knowledgeable will chime in here, too. Here's my understanding:

GH/gH is general Hardness which is mostly Calcium but also other trace elements like Magnesium. Both of these should come from liming the soil. The term "lime" can be confusing. Liming is generally adding Calcium. You could technically 'lime the soil' with crushed shell. Dolomite lime also has Magnesium in it, so you'll be covered there also. The pellet part is to get slow release. Usually the idea is to have the pellets release as the plants use; balance.

KH/kH is carbonate hardness. Carbonate Hardness is more about "buffering capacity". As plants live and grow, their biological processes can make the water pH go up and down as they photosynthesize and rest, day and night. This is the part that always seems 'magical' to me. I don't have a good grasp of the science. Buffering the water will make the pH swings smaller. That's what you want. Raising the KH can raise the pH some, depending on what you use. Your pH of 7 (neutral) is good. The problem is that the thriving plants will make the pH swing up and down in soft water.

I remembered reading the sticky about dosing Calcium Chloride & Magnesium Sulphate which is the best solution (no pun intended) for you. Read the Sticky at the top of El Natural marked *"Useful Links to NPT procedures"* It's the first one. This tells exactly what you need. And is less wordy than I am.  I mentioned baking soda before, but that's not the best solution. You can add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to 11 gallons of water to raise the KH about 4. I don't think you are supposed to try to reach a target (10-12?) that far from what you have with Baking Soda. I'm afraid it would hurt your fish. But you can get the target value (whatever your test says) with Calcium and Magnesium, safely. 
If you just don't want to buy more products maybe you could do another bottle test, but crush some pelletized dolomite lime and mix the resulting powder in with your soil and lime bottle. See if making it a powder will get the number up right away. If it works you'd need to guess-timate how much to add as powder and how much to add as regular pellets. Just an idea.

I think the whole idea with NPTs is that the soil's got it all. The remaining elements are in there. Cl does mean chlorine, so I assume that what was meant in the book, but the tiny bit that living things need is found naturally in the environment. You definitely don't want to add it. The rest of the nutrients are replenished with fish food.


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

You could also go with cactus soil which usually has crushed bone meal which will also add the the calcium in the tank. What is it that the person at the pet store recommended for your substrate. You really don't want to go with anything smaller than what Diana recommends. If your LFS recommended something as good for plants then I would stay away from it as it probably contains iron and other nutrients which you won't need. I'd go with pool filter sand or any other small gravel.

-ricardo


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## dawntwister (Sep 29, 2007)

In the sticky that shows how to set up a natural planted tank oyster shells are added to the dirt. It also states that egg shells can be used too.


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## Prometheus (Feb 12, 2008)

Hey Moose-Factory, I also live in Boston. I've never gotten anything near neutral out of the tap. The water here has a high pH after treatment so that it wont corode the pipes. But it is soft. The petstore guys are saying the pH out of the tap is around 10. My test kit doesn't go that high. I added oyster grit. That was maybe a month or two ago. I am not sure if that was a mistake. Now the guys who recently tested my water at the pet store said that everything was okay except for the pH which is very high at 8.4. Apparently, it is supposed to naturally lower in the tank. He said something was driving up the pH in the tank and that I should take it out because it is way too high for the fish and if it keeps rising they will die!!! Unfortunately I can't really take the oyster grit out of the soil. So I am not really sure what to do in this case. I havent' really done any major water changes except topping it off sometimes. SO they are suggesting that I use neutral regulator and do water changes. (which i dont want to do!!!) 

What were your results with adding the dolomite lime?


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## dawntwister (Sep 29, 2007)

I too have high ph and soft water. This means the water has been given a lime treatmeant. That's why adding the lime didn't do any good. I find dosing with flourish excel has lowered my ph from 8.4 to 7.4. Dosing with baking soda has raised my kh to 3. I am not consistant with dosing with the baking soda. Read that baking soda can raise ph. Thus thinking of getting seachem acid buffer. For it raises the kh, lowers the ph and changes the alkalinity to co2. Wondering if I can use this instead of flourish excel for co2.

For dry fert try www.rexgrigg.com. I bought potassium sodium, for read that plants need a lot of potassium. Potassium is postive ion and sodium is the negative. ion. Ferts are sold this way to create a balance in the water.

Until I read this, I was just thinking of starting over and putting oyster shells over my topsoil. For I thought that they would raise the kh. Glad I didn't.


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## Dustymac (Apr 26, 2008)

Moose-Factory said:


> Alright, so I just did a little more reading. Diana sugggest in her book that softwater is deficient in these minerals:
> 
> Calcium
> Bicarbonate
> ...


Hey Moose,
I'm no organic chemist so all I can suggest is the method that seems to be working for me. Like you, my water is very soft with a high ph, and I got all my ideas from "Ecology of the Planted Aquarium". I bought Calcium Carbonate and Potassium Chloride from *HERE*, and got some Epsom Salts (Magnesium Sulphate) at the local drug store.

For dosing, I started with a 1/2 teaspoon of the first two and a 1/4 teaspoon of the latter mixed well into some tank water before adding gradually to my 45 gallon tank. I got the ratio from a chart in professor Walstad's book before seeing the link described by mommyeireanne. From what I remember in the book, the ratio isn't that critical, and plants will store extra nutrients they don't immediately need. Of course, I could be wrong about that. 

Anyway, the results were breathtaking. Without adding enough to actually raise the GH more than a couple points, all the plants in my sick tank started growing again almost overnight. Because of the fish, I was a little afraid of changing the hardness too fast so I waited a week before dosing the tank again. And I kept hitting it every week until the water test showed a GH of around 8.

That was at least six months ago and now all my tanks have hard water using the same method. Once you get it where you want it, the GH is surprisingly stable and will only drop if you change the water, or the plants actually pull the chemicals from the water column. I test about once a month and haven't dosed the big tank in about two months.

Hope this helps,
Jim


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Dustymac said:


> Hey Moose,
> I'm no organic chemist so all I can suggest is the method that seems to be working for me. Like you, my water is very soft with a high ph, and I got all my ideas from "Ecology of the Planted Aquarium". I bought Calcium Carbonate and Potassium Chloride from *HERE*, and got some Epsom Salts (Magnesium Sulphate) at the local drug store.
> 
> For dosing, I started with a 1/2 teaspoon of the first two and a 1/4 teaspoon of the latter mixed well into some tank water before adding gradually to my 45 gallon tank. I got the ratio from a chart in professor Walstad's book before seeing the link described by mommyeireanne. From what I remember in the book, the ratio isn't that critical, and plants will store extra nutrients they don't immediately need. Of course, I could be wrong about that.
> ...


Hi Jim,

This helps a lot!
Thanks very much for your input.


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## dawntwister (Sep 29, 2007)

Dustymac when you dose with calcium carbonate, potassium chloride and epsom salts do you have to have co2 set up in the tank?


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## Dustymac (Apr 26, 2008)

dawntwister said:


> Dustymac when you dose with calcium carbonate, potassium chloride and epsom salts do you have to have co2 set up in the tank?


The answer is no, although in my case at the time, the 45 was getting DIY CO2. I had originally set it up as a hi-tech but was plagued with problems from the start. My tap water is loaded with silicates so the constant water changing left a chronic diatom bloom. And after a couple months, the plants had stopped growing despite the bright lighting and CO2.

Then I got *EPA* (Ecology of the Planted Aquarium) and learned my water was too soft. I must have at least five books on the shelf that tell me soft water is better for growing plants. (groan)

Of coarse, plants will grow faster with CO2 injection. Now that I have three NPTs going, and plan to convert the other two (the 45 included), I like it better without. Having a soil substrate seems to act like a huge buffer countering imbalances to the delicate ecosystem that is a planted aquarium. Lights that are too bright and CO2 injection seem to throw the whole thing into overdrive. Like driving too fast on a curvy road, one mistake and you crash and burn.

At least that's my impression from my limited experience. Your mileage may vary. 

Jim


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## mommyeireanne (Oct 24, 2007)

Lights that are too bright and CO2 injection seem to throw the whole thing into overdrive. Like driving too fast on a curvy road, one mistake and you crash and burn.

At least that's my impression from my limited experience. Your mileage may vary. 

Jim[/QUOTE]

HA! 
My NPTs are also just recovering from over lighting (BB Algae). Funny analogy.


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