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Re:Simone's thoughts about substrate
First of all thanks for your reply Roger Miller, Jeff Kropp, Tom Brennan
Here is my reply
Roger said that laterite will probably dissolve if mixed with humus and
peat, that because of a possible low redox potential of my substrate and of
a very low Ph.
That seems right to me and I will probably not use laterite also because
it is not cheap (Dupla). But humus taken from a garden supply that is said
to be almost completely pure should not contain undecayed organic material
and that mixed with a very small amount of peat, that is very resistant to
decaying, probably will not result in an high-oxygen-demand-low -ph-soil so
I should not have very low redox potential, the heating cable can also
oxygenate the substarte very slowly keeping a stable redox potential. Am I
right?
Probably I will be able to try to make a layer of laterite above the
humus/peat/vermiculite mix but I wont be able for a long time to prevent it
from mixing
About the gravel I will use 2-3 mm gravel that should not mix very fast
with the soil under it. But I can mix some kind of vulcanic gravel with the
lower layer if you think I should Roger.
Jeff Kropp had almost the same experience as I had with laterite so I want
to tell him that even if I believe that George, Karen and some others have
had good results with only that red stuff I think a lot of us don't trust
laterite as they do expecially in low-tech tanks (without UGHC)
To Tom Brennan I say that after some time maybe years every kind of soils
even laterite will exhaust in an aquarium, we can try to add some
fertilizer to rejuvenate the substrate but we wont be able to do it very
well so I think that soon or later if we want always the same good growth
we sould take the tank down and set it up again. Infact I thought about a
never ending substrate and I realized that I don't want the same tank
forever, but at least I want it stable for 2-3 years.
Bye
Simone Vicini (psvicini at mdnet_it)