# DIY plant substrate...



## champion_qh (Apr 23, 2010)

I just DIY my plant substrate today using the Walstad method, oh...god the water is so so so dirty, even after two hours, it is still kinda of muddy. I don't know if anyone here has similar experience?

I baked some garden soils, and having a layer of gravels before I lay sands on them, the soil should be well covered. maybe they sneak out while I pour water into the tank, damn.....


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## Acipenser (Apr 21, 2010)

Maybe you should post this in the plants section or are you selling this ?


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## taureandragon76 (Apr 21, 2010)

thread moved to plants.


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## Acipenser (Apr 21, 2010)

A saucer works wonders when pouring water into a tank when starting out.


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## KotR (May 6, 2010)

Did you use common garden soil, or commercial topsoil? Did you condition the soil by soaking it before putting it in your tank?

When I set up my walstad tank a few years ago, I used commercial potting soil and let it soak for a few weeks. I actually had the tank up and running before adding the soil (which is a bad idea).

If you are using garden soil you'll get a bit of silt. Just keep changing your water. The silt will go away. Just be careful with more delicate fish. 

If you haven't soaked your soil for a few weeks, I recommend you get your fish out fast. nitrites and nitrates will leach out quickly initially, and you might lose a few.

It's been a while since I've done a walstad aquarium, keep us updated


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## user_error (Aug 15, 2010)

I've done DIY substrate with a lot of my tanks in the past... Works great and very cheap, you can even mix in Vermiculite, Micronized iron, job sticks, a bit of peat sometimes (depends) and other trace elements into the soil. Then cap it with 2" (or so) of gravel or sand or both and your good to go for 5+ years with nothing else needed, but there's also a few other key points to note -

1.) as acidepenser noted, you have to add your water very very slowly and carefully to avoid disturbing your cap and clouding up your water (it will still cloud but not too bad if you do it right, should settle in a few hours). 

pouring onto a plate or into a cup or tupper war container even works great. you also need to add your water more slowly with water changes, and its also a bit of a pain when your planting or otherwise doing plant maintenance, but once the waters in and has cleared up and youve done some water changes and the tank has cycled it's not too bad about the same as other substrates like florobase... 

its especially a pain with vermiculite though so beware of that if anyone tries this (at least until the vermiculite soaks up enough water, about 6 months or so in my experience)

2.) from my experience it doesn't matter too much what kind of soil you use but you really should mineralize it before hand, in order to remove the organics (helps to stabilize the tank so you get fewer or smaller nh3 spikes during and after it has cycled). honestly this could be optional, i didn't do it my first time, but i would highly recommended it now. 

also i've read that potting soil is better for this but i'm not sure, the first few times i tried this out i just grabbed whatever was in my garden but now i like to use fresh potting soil after you rinse it a bunch it will reduce to about 1/3 volume of the original bucket but its nice and compact and mixes good with other additives

3.) you should start off the tank stocking very slow with cheap feeders, like 1 fish per 10G. the tank will need to cycle anyway (assuming its a new tank / filter) and the ammonia will probably spike one more times regardless, depending on your water change schedule. but it will be worse if you didn't mineralize your soil and get rid of the organics

4.) as kotr stated, doing this with an already established tank (bare bottom or some other substrate your swapping out) is a very bad idea unless you can rehome your livestock for 1-2 months or you don't care very much about losses


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## jjrock (Oct 16, 2010)

How's your dirt substrate going? 

I'm also planning to set up a planted aquarium very soon using dirt substrate.
I bought 2 bags of Miracle Gro Organic Choice Potting Mix from Canadian Tire and also plan on washing it and drying it for the next week or two.


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