# do you dirt?



## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

Miracle Grow organic choice potting mix usually.
Most recent effort was with plain top soil mixed with a bit of osmocote flower and vegetable formula,a bit of Green sand soil supplement,and capped with product safe- t-sorb.


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## DennisSingh (Nov 8, 2004)

roadmaster said:


> Miracle Grow organic choice potting mix usually.
> Most recent effort was with plain top soil mixed with a bit of osmocote flower and vegetable formula,a bit of Green sand soil supplement,and capped with product safe- t-sorb.


What plants have you had success with?
My soil i intend to buy, contains dolomite and oyster shell while at the same time buffers the ph to 6.5
Not bad, no?


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## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

StrungOut said:


> What plants have you had success with?
> My soil i intend to buy, contains dolomite and oyster shell while at the same time buffers the ph to 6.5
> Not bad, no?


Mostly been plant's that can do well in low tech.(with some Metricide 14)
Echinodorus,crypt's,Anubia,watersprite,bucephalandra,ludwigia repen's.
If my source water for water changes was not too much different than water in the tank from the pH buffering soil,then I would go for it.
My tap water used for water changes is on the hard alkaline side and this would to me,,represent a large,fairly quick change in water chemistry at each water change so I do not use buffered substrate ,but I have in the past used a little peat mixed with the soil and managed to soften the water a little but not much for some of the tetra species.


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## DennisSingh (Nov 8, 2004)

roadmaster said:


> Mostly been plant's that can do well in low tech.(with some Metricide 14)
> Echinodorus,crypt's,Anubia,watersprite,bucephalandra,ludwigia repen's.
> If my source water for water changes was not too much different than water in the tank from the pH buffering soil,then I would go for it.
> My tap water used for water changes is on the hard alkaline side and this would to me,,represent a large,fairly quick change in water chemistry at each water change so I do not use buffered substrate ,but I have in the past used a little peat mixed with the soil and managed to soften the water a little but not much for some of the tetra species.


Nice, thanks for the information on swings


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## thanatopsian (Dec 11, 2016)

I do. I pot my plants outside with black gold compost. Most ppl will tell you to mineralize your soil before putting it in the tank. Rather than leaving fresh top soil out to mineralize for a month, i just re-use my organic potting soil in my tank when it is time to change it out.

Also, keep in mind that you wont be able to control the amount nutrients in your water column with a soil substrate; what leaches out is what leaches out. If you dont limit the nutrients in the water column, you will have bad issues with algae. To prevent this, i reccomend CFL or LED bulbs and DIY CO2. 

Plants will use up nutrients faster than algae if they have enough CO2 and light. If you find yourself with algae issues and have the above setup, just put more yeast in your CO2 reactor and use a more powerful bulb.

If you increase your CO2 and light and your algae issues get worse, the plants you have are working at full capacity in respect to absorbing nutrients. In this case, the answer is to add more plants (or faster growing plants).

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## DennisSingh (Nov 8, 2004)

thanatopsian said:


> I do. I pot my plants outside with black gold compost. Most ppl will tell you to mineralize your soil before putting it in the tank. Rather than leaving fresh top soil out to mineralize for a month, i just re-use my organic potting soil in my tank when it is time to change it out.
> 
> Also, keep in mind that you wont be able to control the amount nutrients in your water column with a soil substrate; what leaches out is what leaches out. If you dont limit the nutrients in the water column, you will have bad issues with algae. To prevent this, i reccomend CFL or LED bulbs and DIY CO2.
> 
> ...


How bad the leech depends on the soil? Whats leeching out, all nutrients? Or the usual ammonia and junk?

I don't understand what you mean by remineralization.

I appreciate your reply and thank you for your help.


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## Silang (Mar 28, 2017)

I do. Backyard dirt covered with small gravel, and sand - all sourced locally. Cost 0$. 
Light: Natural light, cost 0$. Ferts: none. CO2 injection: none.

Result: Growth was very slow and experienced bad melting during the first 4 weeks, but at 5th week onwards, everything grew like crazy, Vallis are taking over the left corner, and my swords are growing new bright green leaves. Here it is at 80 days old.


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## thanatopsian (Dec 11, 2016)

StrungOut said:


> How bad the leech depends on the soil? Whats leeching out, all nutrients? Or the usual ammonia and junk?
> 
> I don't understand what you mean by remineralization.
> 
> I appreciate your reply and thank you for your help.


Yes and no. It all comes down to chemistry. Since I dont know how much chemistry you have, i'll try to keep it as basic as i can 

Water separates some molecules into charged particles (think salt disolving in water. NaCl becomes Na- and Cl+ floating around in water). With commercial potting soil, what makes it so nutrient rich is that the nutrients are in water soluble forms....plants can use them easily. This is fine for a pot that doent have to worry about algae, but bad news for your tank! If you let soil sit out (specifically if you let the soil get wet and dry out repeatedly), bacteria will bind those nutrients up into forms that dont disolve in water. With time, they will break down again in your tank into forms your plants can use, juat not all at once. This process is called mineralization.

Organic potting soil is recommended because the ratio of water soluble nutrients to mineralized nutrients is closer to what you would find in compost or topsoil. Potting soil that is not labeled organic has chemical fertilizers that are added, which are all exclusively water soluble and because of this cause really bad algae blooms. Also , because potting soil is not a food product and is not required to possess a full list of ingredients , organic potting soil is the only way to know you're not getting pesticides or other chemicals that could be harmful for your fish.

I've added some pics of my 10 gallon tank, in its various itterations, below. I've been running the same 2 14w CFLs for the past 2 years and they seem to be going strong. I run DIY CO2 from a 2 liter coke bottle. 3/4 a cup of sugar, 1/4 tsp bakers yeast provides ample CO2 for 2-3 weeks.



























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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

StrungOut said:


> If so, what brand do you use?
> I'm planning on going dirt capped with sand being due to costs are a lot cheaper than aqua soils
> Who here has had good results?
> I"ll tell you my brand of dirt i'm getting which seems very very very promising, organic too, if you tell me yours...


Scott's Premium Topsoil and Miracle-Gro potting soil(big green bag).
Sifted all wood chips from all of it, this cuts the miracle-Gro in half mind you.

Soaked it all in water for about 1.5 weeks.
Scotts leached NH3 & PO4 but readings could be taken with API.
Miracle-Gro had all @ first NH3, NO2, NO3, and PO4 over API test cards.
After 1.5 weeks the NO2 was washed clean from the Miracle-Gro, everything else just a bit reduced.

1" deep in an 8 square foot frag tank.
Capped with 1.25" of BDBS 20/40 grit.
Filled and tested water for a week, .25 NH3 & 1ppm PO4.

Moved tank to new location and heavily planted.
I still have to dose ferts but no where near a normal EI frequency.
Week 4 now and growth is far superior to anything I have ever used.
I cannot say much leached through the cap or the heavy plant load just took care of it.
I will be doing this again.


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## DennisSingh (Nov 8, 2004)

Silang said:


> I do. Backyard dirt covered with small gravel, and sand - all sourced locally. Cost 0$.
> Light: Natural light, cost 0$. Ferts: none. CO2 injection: none.
> 
> Result: Growth was very slow and experienced bad melting during the first 4 weeks, but at 5th week onwards, everything grew like crazy, Vallis are taking over the left corner, and my swords are growing new bright green leaves. Here it is at 80 days old.


It may not look much, but these tanks really impress me, all natural lighting is really hard to pull off...

Bump:


Maryland Guppy said:


> Scott's Premium Topsoil and Miracle-Gro potting soil(big green bag).
> Sifted all wood chips from all of it, this cuts the miracle-Gro in half mind you.
> 
> Soaked it all in water for about 1.5 weeks.
> ...


This is really scary all those leaches.
Here would be the soil i am using..
https://www.ebstone.org/faq/q-what-is-the-ph-of-the-potting-soil-planting-mix-ednas-best-potting-soil-azalea-planting-mix-etc

https://www.ebstone.org/products/eb-stone-organics

ingredients:
Aged Fir Bark, Sphagnum Peat Moss, Aged Redwood, Volcanic Pumice, Earthworm Castings, Washed Sand, Kelp Meal, Bat Guano, Feather Meal, Gypsum and Mycorrhizae. Oyster Shell Lime and Dolomite Lime are added as pH adjusters

While this might be a cheaper route to go, it may seem harder route to go to
up for the challenge
I'm worried about the leeching


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## GrampsGrunge (Jun 18, 2012)

I use 'Pushed up in Our Yard by Moles' brand.

Yup, subsoil that the ever diligent moles in my yard provide piles of for free, I do an abbreviated MTS treatment to it and have been using it in our Lily and other pond plant pots and other containers in our stock ponds, in addition to it being added as a layer with streambed soil in the 20 gallon.

Which is pumping out plant growth like crazy this year.


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

StrungOut said:


> I'm worried about the leeching


My biggest fear by far, first thoughts were algae farm, but!
I put so many plants in that it was not really any issue.

Something like a gravel or SafeTSorb would allow a lot more passage.
BDBS and PFS make a really tight cap.


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## mkiker85 (May 7, 2017)

I picked up a bag of this today at lowes. Thinking about trying it out in my 10 gallon hospital tank. Has anyone used it and what are your thoughts on it?









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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

I used dirt from the yard, baked in the oven, covered with sand, and had great growth, more than I expected with the cheap DIY led strips I was using. The swords grew from 6" to about 15" in just 2 months with yard soil. Ludwigia repens also had good solid, reddish growth, and this was relatively low light chinese strip lights.

Maybe I got lucky, but I feel that yard soil grows things just fine outside, don't see all the fuss about fancy substrate. Light, CO2, ferts are bigger issue.


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## Kehy (Feb 5, 2012)

I've straight dirt (floaty bits removed) with no cap on a windowsill in a jar. Sure, there was an algae bloom at first, but once things balanced out, it was a remarkable little jar that I did literally nothing to other than top off. Clear water to boot. 

In a tank I'm in the process of setting up (mining more sand/dirt), I'm taking the local dirt, which is sand heavy, and washing the dirt out of it. Foam, silt, and cloudy bits removed, but the sand itself stays. Sun drying it just to make it easier to handle and weigh. Not planning on having a cap, and will use O+ tabs for swords and crypts. 

If an algae bloom happens, it happens. They don't last forever, and usually an excel regimen takes care of them.


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