An information packed article

pl*co

pl*co

Feeds low on the food chain
Jul 18, 2004
669
0
0
Michigan
Here is a link to an article with much of the information on growing aquatic plants that I have found here in the forum and then some, all in one document. I am particularly interested in what the plant guru's have to say about the substrate information in the article. Have you tried this or a similar formula? Do you agree or disagree with the approach? The article is quite lengthy, but an enjoyable, interesting read.

Aquarium Technology for the Very, Very Budget Minded
Jim Kelly
Dept. of Physics
Univ. of California, Davis

http://www.redrum.org/aquarium/fish/AGA/budget.html
 
Well, heck... that was helpful!
 
If you are interested in soil substrates, check out The Krib as well - a good bit of the info is not new, but still valid. Presoaking the soil to burn out (mineralize) the organics is a good practice.
 
Yeah this is a slightly newer version of the article at the Krib. I used this approach three years ago for a ten gallon tank I had while in the dorms in college. That was a brilliant tank as far as plants, I kept killies and pencilfish in there which did pretty well. Really a fantastic tank but it went right against my natural inclination to mess with the aquascape. Every time you pull up a plant you create a cloud of soil. Not so much fun with that aspect.

Also the soil he actually used, Yolo loam, is a type of soil found mainly in California as far as I can tell from soil surveys. I found a similar soil type local to me (mid-atlantic states) and used that with pretty good success. Our soil tends to be more clay than silt or sand, but I think as long as you locate soil close to the Yolo loam specifications (as posted in the article) you would be fine. Its important with soil-substrate tanks to use actual soil and not just potting soil (which is mainly peat and organics) that can cause some real problems when the organics start to break down.

>Sarah
 
Thank you for the link. I found the ferts section particulary interesting, the "Osmocote (Agriform) Planting Tablets". I almost want to try them out, but i don't really have any problems right now. So i don't want to change anything
 
This is a dated article.
I work in Davis and was in Yolo county today.
It's just delta soil is all, nothing special.

Osmocoat, soil etc all have NH4, something no one wants in their tanks.
These methods require you not to add too much and also not move your plants around and also to plant heavily from the start and also moderate light(not more than 2w/gal, back then that was hard to find, no one had 3-4w/gal etc), make sure you have enough CO2 from the start(25-30ppm) etc.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom