View Full Version : using peat moss under flourite good or bad?
Jamie
08-24-2003, 11:00 PM
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
Tempest
08-25-2003, 5:43 AM
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.
plantbrain
08-25-2003, 1:27 PM
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
So should I use it? If so, how much should I put in? I have a 150g with 150 lbs of fluorite. Thanks for the info.
Tempest
08-25-2003, 6:37 PM
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.
Jamie
08-25-2003, 10:33 PM
pardon my inexperience...but mulm is.....the dirty crud vaccumed out of a mature tank?
Tempest
08-26-2003, 5:56 AM
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.
125gJoe
08-26-2003, 10:05 AM
100% Flourite is all that's needed. No need to complicate. It's like adding a laterite layer under Flourite...
Tempest
08-26-2003, 11:09 AM
-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.
Agree w/Tempest again. Also a 55, plus a 29, divided some stands of Crypts from other tanks for the new super-substrate tanks... and watched them die, slowly, slowly. They did not even melt. I learned my lesson - not even the Val (55 only) did well until after some months. With peat and or mulm or both, you can avoid the planted version of NTS.
CordyRoy
08-28-2003, 12:46 AM
So where would one buy appropriate peat? I've been getting things ready for a 90gallon I've got and I'd like to add peat in the substrate. Do you just get it from a garden supply?
Local garden center or home store, plain ordinary Canadian Sphagnum Peat. It comes from about 1 cubic foot or less packages up to 4-6 cubic foot bales (price per unit volume inversely related of course). If you do not garden outdoors, you want the smallest available. No additives ot fertilizers, just sphagnum peat.
125gJoe
08-28-2003, 8:55 AM
I added peat to the filter. Root tabs were added with new plants. Seemed simple.... The way I read the post, it seemed like there was going to be a lot of peat added. I didn't see a need for it, or the future mess.. HTH
plantbrain
08-28-2003, 10:52 AM
I don't use loose moss, I use _ground_ peat, like Scott's brand etc. Yes, the cheap stuff in the garden centers.
Small amounts on the very bottom layer seldom get into the water and ground peat is fine and looks like detritus if you pull it up.
A small amount helps add a little organic material, helps to start a reductive environment etc. This is a good thing in the beginning. I don't add much, it will not make or break a tank, but the mulm is more important for new tanks IME/IMO.
Regards,
Tom Barr
Joe - the difference is in the development of "maturity" in the substrate. peat in the filter has zero effect on that. If you want tannins and humic acid in the water column, the filter use is the way to go (I do not). The substrate use of peat and mulm (as Tom Barr, Tempest, and I have tried to point out, apparently unsuccessfully) is to get the plants started without the normal and expected new tank lag time before good growth and normal development. The use of both materials all but completely erases the normal and expected start-up period, being more like a simple plant move within an established tank. The use of either will help.
Tom has not to my knowledge put a hard figure on his use (I had to rough guess from his "handful"). But I'm a detail nut, so my use is a measured 1/2-2/3 cup of ground peat per square foot of tank bottom. That is a 1/2-2/3 cup measure, not packed, knifed off to level, spread and mixed into the lowest <1" of substrate. The different volumes are based in part on the intended plantings - if deep substrate and/or many crypts, it is the large volume - I don't think that is particularly sensitive. Whether or not that is a large amount is subjective, but it does not tannin-stain the water to any noticeable degree, nor do I see peat fibers on top of the substrate. I normally use about 4" substrate depths on tanks >12" tall, so it pretty deeply buried. During and after a large scale replanting (a rare thing in my tanks), I have some suspended mulm, but it will settle or be filtered out within less than an hour.
125gJoe
08-28-2003, 8:52 PM
RTR, I can see what you mean, but I'd worry some about the peat rotting under those 4 inches of 'substrate'.. The same might be said for using too many Root Tabs though.
A "new" tank could seem "established" with adding to Flourite.
Interesting.
That is the whole object of the peat/mulm addition. If you are patient, the tank will "mature" within 6 months +/- anyway from fish and fishfood waste. I am not patient when I have an easy way around it, thanks to TB.
Flourite is a wonderful substrate, its microporous structure seems near-ideal for roots, but it just hasn't had the opportunity to build up the goodies that an older tank would have, nor will the pH and O2 gradients be established immediately. The peat/mulm helps with both those things.
The same efect can be gotten with gravel/laterite with the peat/mulm addition. But Flourite is forever, and I have to rework gravel/laterite every 1-3 years, depending on the plants in that particular spot. The Flourite may still need some excess root removal from Crypt/sword/val areas, but not recharging with fresh material as I do with laterite. I still have more gravel/laterite tanks than Flourite, but anything being completely restarted is very likely to change over.
plantbrain
08-29-2003, 10:18 AM
In the olden days before laterite/flourite etc, we often were told/it was mentioned that a gravel was not good for growing plants for at least a year or two. It needed time to mature.
Well, what needed time to mature? The rock sand/gravel? Or the bacteria and organic material? By siphoning that and adding it to a new tank, I would in effect, have the same thing after a short period of settling in.
Regards,
Tom Barr