Potting soil substrate

[Avenolpey]

My 36 has been running for around 4 months and the plants wilting away in a straight gravel bed. So, since I had good biological established in my trickle filter and sponges, I decided to jump the tank to potting soil. Took me 1.5 hours start to finish. Fish are doing well and other than a little cloudiness, it worked. Don't know if anyone else has tried this, but I emptied the main tank and left the sump full. Pulled all the gravel, and then put in the potting soil with gravel on top. Then as I simultaneously filled and siphoned until the brown silt disappeared. Then I put back 50% of the original aquarium water and fish. No one seems unhappy. I had to do another 50% water change the next day to get out some cloudiness, and now all is fine.
If my plants take off, I hope to slowly remove bioballs from my sump until I am running exclusively on plant filtration and a couple of sponges for mechanical. I will not be doing gravel vacs anymore and hopefully this will enable me to forgo co2. We shall see.

My plan is to remove 15% of my bioballs and then test for a week, and then repeat. I plan to put water lillies in the sump which gets plenty of window light in place of the bioballs.

Any thoughts

 

[haldrik]

A question...

No comments, just a question:
If you have a heavily planted tank, how exactly is it that you won't need any CO2? I understand that not vacuuming the substrate will help fertilize the plants, but how does that aid in CO2 production?
Also, why is it that you want to get rid of the bio balls and replace with plant filtration? Is that more efficient or require less maintenance?
Sorry for the questions, but I'm really interested in your idea, and want to understand the "why's" of the process...

 

[Avenolpey]

If all works as hoped, maintenance will be minimal. The co2 will come from decomposed organics. I will hopefully reduce co2 gasoff by removing the trickle filter and reducing surface agitation. Of course introduction of co2 injection would increase plant growth, but I want to attempt to create a balanced system. I realize this will probably mean a reduction in fish population, but we will see.

 

[Kissofthegorami]

Potting soil rots, has additives and fertilizers. When you plant aquatic plants in a pond, u want to stay away from loose potting soils you use for land plants. Heavy clay soil works best for aquatic plants. Soil in an aquarium will change the PH, hardness, and may increase your ammonia levels. You want a soil that wont decompose as much.