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Planning for new soil


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Hey Shrimpy Folks,

I am setting up 4 more tanks and want to try some other soil rather than ADA Amazonia. The sole reason for planning to switch to other soil due to the leeching of ADA Amazonia. 

I have some soils/substrate in mind -

1. ADA Africana or ADA Malaya. As far as I know one of them are on the same line of AKADAMA, but which one I forgot. Can any one help me on that?

2. Caribsea Eco Complete.

3. Contro Soil was an option but from their website looks like they are not into production any more? Correct me if I am wrong. Some of the LFS here have them but I think those are old stocks.
 

4. ISTA Soil

These are mostly the soil we get in India.

The filtration mostly I will be trying UG along with HOB. Before Soil will place a layer of ceramic rings to increase the soil thickness.
Water will be 100% RO with SL Aqua Blue Wizard
Shrimps would be keeping - Mosura CRS, Low Grade PBL, Kingkong, Blue Bolt, Tigers etc.
Tank Size - 24*12(h)*15(B) -inches

Do share your experiences, thoughts on which substrate I should go for and also why. Please help me in deciding.

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I'm planning out four 10 gallon tanks with the same shrimp in mind. I've been looking at getting "brightwell" as most say its the same as controsoil. Not sure if you can get it in India though. Just curious about the ceramic orings, is that just for the under gravel filter or will it have other benefits for a sponge filter only tank?

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I'm planning out four 10 gallon tanks with the same shrimp in mind. I've been looking at getting "brightwell" as most say its the same as controsoil. Not sure if you can get it in India though. Just curious about the ceramic orings, is that just for the under gravel filter or will it have other benefits for a sponge filter only tank?

Pokeshrimp I use the ceramic rings for other tanks where there is Canister or sponge filter also,

 

Does AKADAMA do a good job of buffering? I thought I read somewhere that is didn't always go low enough for bee shrimp.

Lyana, I know some of the folks in UK who use AKADAMA with good results.

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I have ADA Africana in one of my 20L tanks, and I'm not sure I'll use it again.  In hind sight, I probably have too deep of a substrate bed, so it may not be totally fair, but it is buffering my tank to the low 5 range - like 5.1-5.2.  I had a fairly low survival rate of my TB's in this tank, and while I can't say for sure, I don't think that the really low pH is helping.  I have Brightwell based tank that is buffering right around 5.9-6.0, and survival is noticeably better.  Now, there are a ton of factors that can go into survival statistics, but for the most part, the tanks are similar - 20L, roughly the same volume of substrate, both on Eheim 2213 canister filters using bubblers for the output/oxygenation.  I also posted earlier about low pH, and a few folks responded in seeing similar things with their tank - the low, low pH seemed to be detrimental to the colony.

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