"Doug and Lois" wrote in message
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snip
4. Any other suggestions? the ideal would be a sbstrate rich enough to
support a variety of plants.

Doug


Hi Doug,

I've done a little reading about using a more "natural" and less expensive
substrate. I found the book by Walstad was a great resource, but my initial
frustration with the book was that it didn't tell me exactly what types of
soils to use - it seems funny now that I would expect the author to do so
when there is such a variety of soils, soil mixtures, ect., plus it takes
half the fun out of it

I did roughly follow the substrate recipe from
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/kelly-intro.html, but I used a local clay and
loam mixture from a pond shop. One thing I did learn in reading about the
soils for the aquarium was that you really have to try and avoid soil
mixtures that have fertalizers and decomposable matter such as wood, leaves,
etc. Otherwise they will begin to rot (or so I have read). My tank and
experience are both realtively new, but I thought I would post my findings
in case it was of interest.

Tom