using peat moss under flourite good or bad?

Jamie

Jamie

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Hello all, plaintbrain has recommended to put peat moss underneath fluorite as a substrate. I was reading in the skeptical aquarist under filtration and water softness how peat moss actually works...by absorbing Ca and Mg ions. Is that the purpose of putting it in the substrate? Are these trace elements that the plants need? Will the peat moss lower my pH or KH thus affecting my CO2 absorbtion? I will be laying down my substrate tomorrow and am unsure if/why I should put peat moss under my fluorite other than because plantbrain recommended it to somebody. Right now my plan is to put in the fluorite with flourish root tabs- I'll wait for the explanation of the peat moss before I use it. Thanks for any info.

-Jamie
 
Plantbrain only says to use like a handful on the bottom for a ten gallon and accordingly for larger. There won't be a whole lot of softening from the peat way down under the substrate. If I am not mistaken, the peat is to give your substrate a *jumpstart* on it's way to maturity. Put some mulm from a vacumed tank on top of the moss also.
 
There are a lot of variations on substrates and their handling, many of those variations work.

To me, Tom Barr's technique is exactly as Tempest said. It jump-starts the tank with a bit high-CEC (cation exchange capacity) organic matter in the bottom of the substrate. "Mulm" from an old tank would do essentially the same thing, except it would already have goodies in it. In both cases the minerals attached to or in the materials (peat or mulm) can be pulled for use by the plant roots without much effort - that is the way root-feeders get their material in the wild. This is much like using compost when making up a bed in the garden.

But the quantity is important. You do not want or need a large amount of the material added.
 
A few years after doing this, I find Amano's substrates also use the peat in the same manner but the peat is coated on the gravel etc and it's 5X more costly.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
150 gallons ?!!!!! <drool>

I'd use it.... I started my 55 gallon before I heard about a lot of this but will certainly do my next large tank that way. (Including the mulm) I started the 55 gallon with just the substrate but I think now that I would have had less trouble if I had known some of this stuff. :)

Somewhere in this forum Plantbrain gives his *recipe* so you can most likely do a search or he may come back around. I'd think that if you use just a handful for a ten gallon, you could probably judge by the difference in the surface area to cover.
 
Yeah.. Just let some settle in a bucket, pour off some of the liquid on top, then put it in the tank on top of the peat and add the flourite to that. It contains all that nice live stuff you need in your aquarium.
 
100% Flourite is all that's needed. No need to complicate. It's like adding a laterite layer under Flourite...
 
-Joe I know that flourite is all that is *needed* but I sure wish I had known about the peat and mulm when I started my 55 gallon cause it would have certainly shortened the time to mature the tank. I think flourite itself becomes better with age but in the meanwhile you have probably six months in there to wait until the plain flourite tank matures.
 
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