In an agenda based biased support for non CO2 methods, Homer Simpson(not his real name) suggested some things that fused a few methods together to Achieve a goal.

This method is easy and simple and uses a commercial product that is widely available and homogeneous. ADA aqua soil.

Here's a hybrid approach I've mentioned to some folks that works better than anything. Use Excel for the non CO2 approach and do the water changes for the first few weeks, then slowly back off.
The plants will be well established and their roots grown in.
You can do all the water changes you want.
Then when you ween off the Excel, go cold turkey with the water changes.
Very simple.

Now many claim you should do one method and not mix them etc, however, with the dry start and with such methods like this one, you can do them and take the advantage of each to get the goal you are after:thumbsup:

Now you can take this method above, and then do the dry start as well, then add Excel, then back off later depending on what species you want in the tank.

So in summary:

Try using ADA As for a non CO2 tank, the problems with it are high NH4/tannins etc.

To get around this:
We can do the dry start to better root plants and to help cycle the tank and the NH4. Once the tank's foregroud plants etc are establsihed, we flood the tank.
We alos add Excel for the first few weeks and do large water changes to remove the leaching from the ADA AS.

Now after 2-3 month's time has past, the plants are well grown in, no algae(excel + dry start), dense, and well cycled. The ADA soil is now fairly mature and ready to go non CO2/non Excel and no more water changes.
Give the plants at least 2- 4 weeks time to adapt, things might not goes as well as you might think at first, but should recover. You can make the transition easier vai slowly tapering off of the dosing of Excel.

If you want the faster growth, you can always go back to Excel+ water changes-or no water changes).

Note, the lower rates of growth using Excel vs CO2 will allow the ADA As to last much longer, perhaps 3-10X longer depending on the plant species.
You can dose, but at a much reduced rate(see the non CO2 article for more there).

I think this method will allow very nice non CO2 low maintenance scapes that are nice looking and not that hard to set up if you use a fusion of 1-2 methods.

Give this one a try.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Thanks for coming up with this method and posting it, Tom. My next tank is going to be non-CO2 -- I've got a feeling that I will really enjoy that style of tank. I had been researching the non-CO2 methods but still had tons of questions ... you just answered 99% of them with this simple method.

Very interesting. I like the idea of growing out the plants initially and then discontinuing the excel. It gets the plants established, then you have a nice looking tank with low maintenance. I've seen a number on non co2 tanks and they can be quite striking. The frustrating part is waiting for the tank to get established.

Could this be done using co2 initially ? Could a substrate such as eco complete or flourite be used ? Is using the dry method to start necessary ?

Since you already brought it up, Henry...

One question I was going to ask before I actually start my non-CO2 tank is: Can I get my tank's plants fully established with CO2 first? I was thinking maybe only 10-15ppm CO2, since I would have low light -- and also use light EI dosing (perhaps 1/3 normal). You'd have the best of both worlds: fairly quick tank establishment, then after weaning off of CO2 slowly, you have a low maintenance tank.

Maybe if you get some new plants, you could even crank up the CO2 again occasionally to get the new plants up and running quickly. Of course, now we're complicating things again.