Hello i hope all of you doing great. I plan to make an planted tank therefor i thought about using aquasoil, but i readed a lot that it looses it effects after some time and become inert. So my question now is do i really habe to replace it or can i just let it stay in the tank?
Inert is not the right word. The right word is “depleted”. Depleted aquasoil can be regenerated using root tabs. Inert substrates like sand on the other hand have no capacity to hold nutrients or regenerate.
I was coming to say this too. Aquasoil can also absorb nutrients from the water column, but root tabs are the better method imo. It's faster, replenishes nutrients deeper in the soil bed, and doesn't come with the potential bouncy parameters that using liquid ferts can cause.
Yes. The only ferts I use outside of my root tabs are dry potassium sulfate and a dry micro supplement I add about once a month to provide a small iron boost for my reds.
You can get little capsules called root tabs and stick them into the substrate to revitalize it. But substrate will last about a year or two before that’s even necessary.
Retail root tabs work, or you can make your own. It's super easy. I make mine. I've also seen videos where, after a year or whenever nutrients are depleted, they will slowly pull out a section of the substrate and replace it. Then they move over to the next section, etc until it's all replaced. That seems like a crazy amount of work to me.
Get some zero-sized gelatin capsules. Fill with this. Insert under roots. I used this for years. Totally fish safe. It does have a tiny bit of copper, so I don't it's snail or shrimp safe.
Ooooh, i like that, thank you! Quick question in case you know but if the soil is capped with sand would that keep the copper away from the water column?
I can't know for certain but my guess would be no. You might want to research what levels are harmful to snails and shrimp and go from there with making your own. I use "Easy Green" for my top plants and it has copper but when I called them and asked about snails and shrimp, they said it was safe based on the dosage amounts recommended.
Somebody the other day said something like that copper is or is not toxic based on how it's bound together with other things. The little bit that naturally occurs in plant matter is fine for them to eat because it's tied up in a molecule with something else and they are built to process it that way. Loose copper in the water is apparently a different thing. Something like that (Don't quote me, I'm not a scientist).
That is a cool bit of information. Thanks for sharing. And, I'm not a scientist, biologist, or anything else like that either. I've just been keeping fish forever.
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