After a lengthy talk,

Ugh, well, we are removing all the ADA aqua soil, it just makes way too much mess for the client's taste. I agree also. Replanting and corys etc make it a mucky tank even if you run 5 micron filters, tons of current, daily 50% water changes etc.
No way to remove it even if you have 2x the filters etc.

So we will siphon it out and replace with Eco complete.
At least I can step on that and it does not degrade and cloud.

ADA As is fine for smaller tanks, but damn, it does stink for the larger systems.
No more using it for larger tanks than 200-300 gal.

Regards,
Tom Barr

I would question ADA even on some "smaller" tanks. I had to weed my 120G 2 weekends ago and the water is still a little murky. It does go away, but its a pain. I don't think I'll ever use it again.

Well, in the smaller tanks, not a big deal, but there are trade offs I really do not care for. The stuff needs to be a tad harder and less mucky.

I do not like any commercial substrate truthfully, but ADA grain size is good, the color is good and growth is good.

Given most of the trade offs, I still suggest using it. But if you do a large rework, it's a bugger.

EC, Flourite, Onyx etc? Easy to do a rework, deep vacuum and that's it.
We tried several clarifiers, all sorts of filtration any and everything we could think of.

Some spots had little detritus, but most of the tank did, and that was with daily water changes, sump pump dust/detritus removal + continuous water changes for well over a week.

Still the tank will not clear, this has never occurred in any harder substrate types.
I've used soil and sand caps that was easier to remove and clean etc than this.

I just replaced the powersand back in my 20 gal here at home. That was a PITA as well, 3 X 80%(One to siphon out the ADA AS/PS mix) water changes and I can just barely see the back of a 12" tank after 4 hours. This time I added my wood and then added pure ADA AS.

Sort of a mini prep for the next project on this giant tank.

Well, lots of work ahead.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Tom,

May be Amazonia II will improve things

No, I do not think it will. It's just a response to cloudy harder tap water, the stuff is still soft and degrades.

That is fine if you can remove all that and clean it easily, but on massive tanks, that's very difficult to get it all.

That is also a good reason to do lots of water changes with it: to remove the tannins, reduce the pH effect caused by those, remove all the mulm it forms.

It's just not very clean.

Regards,
Tom Barr