# Tired of my ADA AS degrading so fast



## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

I sucked up over half of it six months or so ago and now its back to this...

I have hard water so as far as I know this is the only substrate that I can use to grow the plants I want to keep. I dont know what to do.

You can see the sediments on my plants.









































Where it lands its like a breeding ground for BBA. 

















6 months.


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## jsenske (Mar 15, 2004)

Is that Amazonia or Amazonia II? Did you get it from me/ADG? Sorry for not inquiring or seeing this thread sooner.


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## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

Nope AS I Ammonia and I only have gotten any of my AS from you.


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## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

Here is what the front of the tank looks like after 6 months.


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## jsenske (Mar 15, 2004)

That pic above is just wrong man! Wow. I have done dozens of layouts with both Amazonia and Amazonia II and have never experienced such a thing. Clearly its not a common problem or no one would use the stuff! I certainly wouldn't sell it if that was in any way common. 
I will forward this to ADA Japan and see if they have any insights.


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## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

Yeah I know. Thanks for talking with me today, hopefully we can get to the bottom of this with the help of ADA.

Here are the other pics you were wanting and a few extras.


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## jsenske (Mar 15, 2004)

Do you have any shrimp and/or O-cats in there?


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## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

No shrimp but I do have a few Otocinclus.


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## jgb77 (Jan 6, 2007)

bsmith said:


> Here is what the front of the tank looks like after 6 months.


Looking at this picture, I'm wondering if it's something other than the Aquasoil breaking down.
If you don't mind a little experiment, take a dosing syringe with about 10ml of peroxide and inject it into the bottom against the glass and see if it clears up the area you spot treated with the H2O2.
I had something similar to this and the H202 cleared it up. I don't know what it was and mine wasn't along the whole bottom glass, just in one localized area.
John


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## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

Ill try about anything.


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## houseofcards (Feb 16, 2005)

jgb77 said:


> Looking at this picture, I'm wondering if it's something other than the Aquasoil breaking down.
> If you don't mind a little experiment, take a dosing syringe with about 10ml of peroxide and inject it into the bottom against the glass and see if it clears up the area you spot treated with the H2O2.
> I had something similar to this and the H202 cleared it up. I don't know what it was and mine wasn't along the whole bottom glass, just in one localized area.
> John


What are you thinking it might be?


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## Bunbuku (Feb 10, 2008)

I had this happen in a tank where I used Amazonia II (after 5-6 months). It was not rescaped at all after the initial planting so I could not attribute the breakdown to me mucking around the substrate. The Amazonia II was an iwagumi layout with a dense HC carpet but tank held a lot of tiger shrimp.

The next layout used regular Amazonia and it did not breakdown even with rescaping. 

In both cases I used RO water reconstituted with Equilibrium.


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## Texex94 (Jul 29, 2004)

Interesting thread. I've seen the same thing happen with my AS I that I've only had for about a year. I have the "powder" as well in my tank and after a heavy pruning, the water stays hazy for a while. I'd love to find out if this is something to do with a certain batch of AS or if anyone else has seen this problem.


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## jsenske (Mar 15, 2004)

ADA asked me a bunch of questions today to which I replied and I expect some feedback tomorrow. 

This is not a problem ever experienced in other markets, as I understand it. Interesting. 

Please do note the vast majority of people that use Aqua Soil do not encounter this. Ever heard of the CAU guys mention such a thing? I am convinced there is something else in play here. I'm not too sure about the "bad batch" theory either. We will see. Mike and I have done dozens of layouts (perhaps more than anyone in the U.S.) and never encountered such a thing. Nonetheless I am committed to finding out as much as I can to help.


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## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

Texex94 said:


> Interesting thread. I've seen the same thing happen with my AS I that I've only had for about a year. I have the "powder" as well in my tank and after a heavy pruning, the water stays hazy for a while. I'd love to find out if this is something to do with a certain batch of AS or if anyone else has seen this problem.


In my case it cant be a certain batch. Over the course of 3 years or so I have had 3 different orders from ADG and replaced the substrate in this tank (the majority of it) with the new stuff. Unless the stock is sitting in ADG's storing facility for quite a while and they are from the same shipment from ADA, but I have a hard time believing that it would take them 3-4 years to go through an order of AS.


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## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

jsenske said:


> ADA asked me a bunch of questions today to which I replied and I expect some feedback tomorrow.
> 
> This is not a problem ever experienced in other markets, as I understand it. Interesting.
> 
> Please do note the vast majority of people that use Aqua Soil do not encounter this. Ever heard of the CAU guys mention such a thing? I am convinced there is something else in play here. I'm not too sure about the "bad batch" theory either. We will see. Mike and I have done dozens of layouts (perhaps more than anyone in the U.S.) and never encountered such a thing. Nonetheless I am committed to finding out as much as I can to help.


You ninja'd me. 

I appreciate all the help and hope that we can get to the bottom of this.


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## Travis.808 (Apr 2, 2009)

I just happened across this thread. Mine is EXACTLY like this been up for less than a year at about 6 months it started doing this. I all but completely gave up on this tank as I just became a dad. If you try the peroxide "spot dosing" and it works, LMK. My tank went from IMO beautiful to crap. Thought of tearing it down many times if there is an "easy" fix please tell me as I'd love this tank to go back to its "full glory"


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## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

Travis.808 said:


> I just happened across this thread. Mine is EXACTLY like this been up for less than a year at about 6 months it started doing this. I all but completely gave up on this tank as I just became a dad. If you try the peroxide "spot dosing" and it works, LMK. My tank went from IMO beautiful to crap. Thought of tearing it down many times if there is an "easy" fix please tell me as I'd love this tank to go back to its "full glory"


Sorry to hear about this happening to you as well Travis. IME there is no fix but you can help the issue for awhile by vacuuming the substrate gently to clear up the very fine particles. Jeff has been very helpful but unfortunately we have not yet come to any one specific cause of the issue. Can you post up pics of your soil?


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## flashbang009 (Aug 6, 2009)

A local store i go to has AS in one of their tanks and the exact same thing is happening to theirs. Houseofcards didn't something like this happen to yours?


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## houseofcards (Feb 16, 2005)

flashbang009 said:


> A local store i go to has AS in one of their tanks and the exact same thing is happening to theirs. Houseofcards didn't something like this happen to yours?


I don't think it's any big secret on this forum that AS II breaks down pretty quickly and seems to be only good for certain types of scapes and/or scapes that you are only keeping up short term for a contest or photo op. I personally have not had any problems with AS I and would definitely recommend that substrate to based on my experience. AS II seems to break down even quicker when there is pressure against it (i.e. rocks separating it and holding it back from a sandy foreground) as indicated in this pic of it in one of my tanks. This is the AS II squeezing through the rocks and landing on the sand foreground.


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## Bunbuku (Feb 10, 2008)

Has anyone ever tried the Aquasoil Malaya to see if its as prone to breakdown? http://www.adgshop.com/Aqua_Soil_Malaya_p/104-022.htm


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## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

What could light and co2 possibly have to do with the condition of the soil?


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## houseofcards (Feb 16, 2005)

n4y28r said:


> I don't think that he soil cause the problem. It seems like something that you need to do withe the light and co2.


Yes, that would be interesting to hear.

bsmith, whatever happened with this?


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## xJaypex (Jul 22, 2009)

I have AS1 and soft water, im noticing this in my tank as well. But i think its due to the algae wafers that i feed my shrimp with. Do you feed any wafers to your shrimp?

As for the AS2 breaking down, maybe it has something to do with using RO water with it. A store owner i bought it from recommended that AS1 is better with RO and AS2 is meant for tap water.


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## Markw78 (May 6, 2004)

Is it possible the few people experiencing this have counterfeit AS?

http://bhushandalvi.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/counterfeit-ada-aquasoil-amazonia/


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