ADA Soil Problem- time oriented!!!!

[Morainy]

How's it going, Stefan?

[serhiobc]

Is far as I know if you leave the ADA soil to dry out it may cliud your water. As soon as you take it from the pakage you should plant it and fill it with the water the same day otherwize it will cloud your water. I read this in the Aqua Journal the other day. Also if you are using the powder type soil which is intended to be place on the sourface of the regular aquasoil for cosmetic looks purpose that can make the water cloudy.

[liquid_krystale]

I went through the exact same thing you did, Stefan. I made the mistake of just pouring the water in (albeit gently), and was rewarded with an incredibly muddy tank. I was told to let it just settle, but almost a week later it was just as murky.

I had to change out 90+% of the water, then use a siphon to stir up the surface 0.5 inch of substrate to remove any mud sitting on the surface layer of ADA that would've flew up to cloud the water again when I put water back in. Afterwards, I put a plastic bag on the surface and very gently poured water into the tank so that the flow was extremely diffuse. I repeated this once every 2-3 days, and could see the water clear up visibly after each water change. I also used filter floss and a 5 micron filter bag to polish the water, and changed the filter floss every day because it was so clogged up with mud.

The problem is that the particles are so small that most times they bypass even the 5 micron filter. I was told by several fish stores that the binding agents were not recommended, but they didn't tell me why.

[grizadams_7mm]

when we did our tanks with the ADA we had a similar problem. We just packed our filters with filter floss and a couple days later it was all cleared up. When adding water I just hold a small plate under the water flow and fill er up nice and slow.