FWIW, although to early to draw definite conclusions. I set up a 15 gallon high experimental Aquasoil II tank up and dosed EI full throttle light off the bat. I used Seachem Purigen in the filter to absorb excess organics. I did only daily 50% water changes for the first week on than 2x/weekly the second week, then 1x/week thereafter. Lighting is 2 40 watt corallife colarmax with the standard canopy sloppily padded with mylar sheeting. Photo-period is split: 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., off from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. and on from 5:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. for a total of 8.5 hours. c02 is on the excessive side at 40 ppm consistent as measured via drop checker using 3 DIY c02 bottles. The tank has only been up since December 26 2007. So far(knock on wood), not a single strand of algae, no brown stuff(diatoms) and plant growth has pretty much tripled in about a month. Still too early to say though.

Add some Amano shrimps now.
Maybe some Otto's etc.

You keep it up, and things should progress.
FYI, you do not need full EI with those lights though.
You could do 1/2 EI and be okay.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Thanks Tom. I will cut back EI to 1/2. As far as ottos and Amano Shrimp, I was really worried about adding those given the 40+ ppm c02. I figured they may croak until/unless I throttle back the c02, but I am afraid to do this for fear of getting a major algae bloom.

You would think that nothing should survive that level of c02 but the snails in the tank seem to be doing fine and I thought I saw a tiny planaria for the last few days going back and forth on the glass. Go figure.

I was thinking of adding cheap feeder ghost shrimp to the tank instead of Amano Shrimp. Whether true or not but I read that when Amano Shrimp were first discovered as algae eaters, many folks in the US who did not have access to Amano shrimp or could not afford them at the time began adding ghost shrimp to their planted tanks in the hopes that ghost shrimp would consume algae like the Amano shrimp. Some claimed that the ghsost shrimp did eat algae. Don't know if that is true as I always pictured ghost shrimp as carnivores(I heard stories of the ghost shrimp like jackals baiting and ganging up on otos and eating them and even eating baby snails) and scavengers who primarily ate left over food on the bottom of the tank and not algae.

I am trying my hands growing Hairgrass using the dry method (wetting the ADA Aquasoil). It's now about 4 weeks and I can see that they are beginning to grow. I aim to flood the tank after 8 weeks (approx 2 months).

Tom, when I have flood the tank, should I also do a 50% WC changes 2-3x a week for the first 1-2 months ?

Many thanks.

You cannot over do water changes.
They are always beneficial at least in every case I've seen if you use CO2.

You can do them daily, and add ferts back each day if you wish.
This is a simply method to provide precise non limiting ratios, ppms of nutrients, the trade off is large daily water changes, but for a week, two weeks, three weeks etc to rectify an issue or to clean algae up, to whip a tank back into shape, or to test a nutrient parameter without test kits, this is a simple easy to do method if you set up the water change to be easy.

Small test tanks also work easily and can be placed near where it's easy to change water etc.

Some folks do this frequent water changes with chemical filtration: zeolite+ Carbon+ purigen.


Those are the best 3 things for a planted tanks for chemical treatments.


Regards,
Tom Barr

Does brand new aqusaoil release ammonia? I thought Power Sand realeased ammonia.

I just did a re-scape of my 60 gallon with all the fish in the tank. I basically sucked some old aqusoil out of the tank where I no longer wanted aquasoil but some sand.

Now I want to add some new aquasoil to the used aqusoil to some areas in the tank.

Is there any problem doing this? IE: ammonia spikes, etc. with the fish in the tank?

Fish in the tank are discus, tetras, cory's, etc.

I would think this should not be a problem byt wanted to check before I kill any fish.

They(PS and AS) both release about the same amounts per unit volume of NH4.
Since your tank has a well established, the bacteria should be able to handle a fair amount.

I'd suggest adding some Zeolite and doing 2-3x a week water changes for the next 2 weeks or so.

But yes, I have done this without issue.

Regards,
Tom Barr