# Dirting a tank with Westland Aquatic Compost: ammonia leaching



## MountainPool (Jul 13, 2014)

I've just dirted my little 20L with this stuff, about half an inch thick capped with 1mm sand. 

There's no biological filtration, and no fauna except the snails that came with the plants, and the soil has leached to 5 ppm ammonia over 24 hours. 

My question is, can I use this compost to rescape a fully cycled, lightly stocked 30gal? 

I've got a Fluval 3plus internal filter, with added biological capacity in the form of a prefilter in coarse foam.

The dirted area would be approximately a sixth of the footprint of the tank, to a depth of half an inch. 

If this would leach too much for the filter to handle with WC's, how could I pre-treat the compost to leach out the ammonia in advance of putting it in the scape?


----------



## Midnighttide102 (Oct 2, 2014)

Adding the dirt to a cycled tank in my opinion is no dif then adding more fish they both increase the ammonia load but the beneficial bacteria will usually get it under control pretty quickly so I think you'd be just fine


----------



## dzega (Apr 22, 2013)

compost and worm castings are way too rich for aquariums. however its ok to use this stuff mixing it with soil.
freeze cubes and press into existing tank substrate shold do the trick.

tho im not sure our uderstanding of 'compost' is the same
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compost


----------



## MountainPool (Jul 13, 2014)

Thanks midnighttide: im hoping it won't be like adding toooo many fish at once, if I don't add too much dirt, just enough for my nymphamea lotus,

The 'compost' in question is 'westlands aquatic compost' http://www.gardenhealth.com/products/indoorspecialist/aquatic-compost

Sorry for the confusion, compost is used to mean 'potting soil' in the UK and MGOPS is called compost in this country. We still use the meaning 'decomposed garden waste' for the word 'compost' too, 

The tank doesn't currently have substrate, it's bare bottom, with the plants in pots, so I'm rescaping the whole thing anyway, the question isn't how to put the dirt in, because its easy once the tank is empty, its whether my filter can take the strain of preventing an ammonia spike.


----------

