Substrate Experiment

Good morning everyone!!

So I decided to make my own substrate and to test it against ADA amazonia and DIY topsoil....

I first wanted to wait 3 months for the results to show... but decided this morning that I would start the thread....

So The four substrates to be tested are the following:
1. ADA Amazonia
2. DIY topsoil mix (using the steps described here: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...-mineralized-soil-substrate-aaron-talbot.html)
3. HPV-NP Substrate containing slow releasing phosphate and nitrate mix. (My own)
4. HPV-Pure Substrate containing no extra added phosphates/nitrates... (My own)

The two substrates that I made are shown below. The first photo is HPV-NP and the second one HPV-Pure.

HPV-NP


HPV-Pure


And made a nice 4-tank setup using an aold fishtank to compare the four...


After adding the soils (between two layers of pure silica gravel to minimize the amount of soil to be used) I waited 24 hours and this was the result:


The topsoil mix leached and made the water quite dirty... I decided to replace the water to lower the cloudiness of the water....:


The conditions for each tank is the following:
Water volume: Approx. 10L
Substrate mass: 500g of specified substrate (situated between 2 layers of silica gravel - approx. 20mm per layer)
Water temp: 24C
Lighting: 1x Jebo 10 000K aquarium light T8, 1x Osram Cool white 6500K T8, Reflector on top.
Fish: 2x neon tetras will be introduced after the first week after they have been quarantined. (small fish is used to limite the amount of food used) Fish are added to test whether the substrates are fish friendly...

Normal tap water was first added to the tanks and the first water test to test for PO4 and NO3 will be done after the first week (This weekend)

Each tank containes the following plants:
1x Pogostemon Octopus
2x staurogyne repens
1x Ludwigia repens
1x rotala macrandra
1x Helxine soleirolii

I will post the results as the experiment runs to show the difference...

The first big test will be this weekend to see whether any fish will die during introduction to the separate tanks... and also the PO4 and NO3 concentrations...

 

Sounds like a nice experiment .... Remember the pics every week.

 

i'm very curious.

 

I will do so!!

I am also excited to see the results....

 

Some Advice:

Will you recommend to do water changes during the experiment or not?

If YES:
Why, what % and how often?

 

Nice man this will be a very good experiment cannot wait for the results.

Well done.

 

I would definitely recommend WC especially because you are introducing fish to these tanks.
To be honest I wouldn't introduce fish until week 4.

That would be the minimum amount of time to give a tank enough time to cycle.

WC is a must due to Nitrate and Ammonia spikes, first four weeks would do a WC once a week at 50%
or
You could do smaller more frequent WC's

 

Thanx Hein,

I will keep this in mind....

think I will hold back on the fish at the moment....

 

Looking forward to your results though...
Are you going to add some form of CO2 as that will increase the intake of nutrient by the plants? Maybe some Excel or DIY CO2?

 

Any form of CO2... DIY... well.... that is difficult... It is a lot of maintenance!!!

and also the bubbles from the filters will remove CO2... and excel is quite expensive....

What other source of Carbon can I use? Any suggestions?

 

Where did you find the dolomite and muriate of potash?

 

very intresting xperiment Chicken, will definitely b keeping an eye on this. I think keep things as close to an Aquarium as possible, so cycle n then introduce ur fish. n do normal wc like u would for any of ur tanks.+1 buddy, really wanna see how it goes!!

 

Hi Luis and Good_Times....

Thanx for the posts on this thread.... It is greatly appreciated....

@Good_Times: I got some samples from a work colleague.

@Luis: I agree... i try to keep it as close to a normal aquarium as possible... I will do my first water change this Saturday... I will also measure NH3,PO4,NO3 and KH...

I will keep you all posted...

 

Hi all!!

So it is time for an update after the first week:

This is what the tank looked like after one week. (The water levels difference due to the samples I took for water analysis).


The water analysis for each tank (Tank 1 on the left up to tank 4 on the right) are shown below:

Week 1

Tank 1 (ADA Amazonia):
NH3/NH4+ => 1 ppm
PO4 => 0.1 ppm
NO3 => 15 ppm
NO2 => more than 8ppm
Fe => 0 ppm
pH => 8.0

Tank 2 (DIY garden Topsoil):
NH3/NH4+ => 0 ppm
PO4 => 1 ppm
NO3 => 5 ppm
NO2 => 8ppm
Fe => 0 ppm
pH => 8.5

Tank 3 (HPV-NP):
NH3/NH4+ => 0.1 ppm
PO4 => 2 ppm
NO3 => 5 ppm
NO2 => more than 8ppm
Fe => 0 ppm
pH => 9.0

Tank 4 (HPV-Pure):
NH3/NH4+ => 0 ppm
PO4 => 0.25 ppm
NO3 => 15 ppm
NO2 => more than 4 ppm
Fe => 0 ppm
pH => 8.7


I did a 70% water change on each tank. Each tank is closed with black bags in order to control the amount of light for each tank. Light is therefore only supplied by the light unit, and not by the environment...

The one plant, Helxine soleirolii, is not doing so well in each tank.. although Tank 2 showed new green leaves on the plant... so let's wait and see what happens.

Tank 2 still shows a lot of tannin in the water... I would like to see after how many water changes the color will disappear..

Have a blessed week all!!

 

Interesting, and very thorough with all the testing. Like Luis I would also advise w/c for all the tanks as you are already doing. @f-fish has done numerous comparisons with substrates Comparing substrates -please help with a protocol..., and he usually always experiments in the same water column to eliminate variables in the water column conditions.
So for purely measuring the substrate that is good, but on the other hand I am thinking that the nutrients that might potentially leak out from each substrate into the water might promote the growth also.
So from that point of view you're test is good to see what it would actually be like to test it in a single tank as it would be used in "real world" application.

 

Thanx for the good word @Good_Times....

I will keep you updated during the experiment....

All comments/critics are more than welcome... So that we all can learn something from this...

 

Good morning everyone!!

So it is time for an update....

After yet another week the tanks showed some differences... and here they are:

This what the tanks look like after week 2:


So as you can see tank 3 (HPV-NP) had significant amount of GWA.... The rest of the tanks looks good.... after I took the photo, I did another 70% WC and this is what the tanks looked like at the beginning of week 3 (This week):


It looks really good and I am happy.... I let it stood for 24 hours (Full Saturday) and on sunday evening I took some closeup photos of the plants to show their health and also the water parameters:

Tank 1 (ADA Amazonia):

NH3/NH4+ => 0 ppm
PO4 => 0.1 ppm
NO3 => 5 ppm
NO2 => 0.25 ppm
Fe => 0 ppm
pH => 8.82

Tank 2 (DIY Garden soil):

NH3/NH4+ => 0 ppm
PO4 => 0.1 ppm
NO3 => 0 ppm
NO2 => 0.25 ppm
Fe => 0 ppm
pH => 8.87

Tank 3 (HPV-NP):

NH3/NH4+ => 0 ppm
PO4 => 1 ppm
NO3 => 25 ppm
NO2 => more than 8 ppm
Fe => 0 ppm
pH => 9.36

Tank 4 (HPV-Pure):

NH3/NH4+ => 0 ppm
PO4 => 0.25 ppm
NO3 => 0 ppm
NO2 => 0.25 ppm
Fe => 0 ppm
pH => 9.02

FRom the results the pH did not looked right... after taking 3 samples of each tank and also a sample from my tap and distilled water, the results proved to be accurate:
pH of tap water: 7.63
pH of distilled water: 6.71
thes pH values falls in the correct range, so there is nothing wrong with the probe... It must have been the rocks!

so i took it out now and let us see what happens......

So from the photos one can see that the plants is doing not too bad...

I decided to do a 4 day blackout

Next update to follow....

Have a blessed week!

 

very good Chicken, +1

 

Update anytime soon? Keeping me in suspense!

 

Hi all...!!

Time for another update...

Sorry for the delay... things are just a bit hectic this side...

after week 3:

Tank 1: ADA amazonia
Tank 2: DIY Garden Soil
Tank 3: HPV-NP
Tank 4: HPV-Pure



After I did water change:


I decided not to test the water because all the parameters are reducing... therefore no more leaching of products...

It is time to introduce fish to the tanks this weekend to supply the plants with N and P...

Will keep you posted...