clay in the aqaurium

[ddestinydawn@aol.com]

i was wandering if anyone knew anything about clay. It got in there because i wanted to try pond plants which came in clay so i thought i should use the clay and all well it took 2 days for the cloud to clear and now i want to take the plants (and clay ) out but i dont know if its better to leave it alone or take it out. any help??

[Lady Hobbs]

I have used the Laterite clay, formed balls of it and baked it so I could push it into the gravel without it exploding into the water. Clay works well and helps hold the nutrients. However, every time you want to move a plant or plant a new one, you get a mess in your water.

I would recommend the clay to either fine gravel/sand but only if you want to plant heavily right from the beginning and won't have to keep messing with it.

[hungryhound]

I am not sure that I can answer your question but I will try.


Clay is not unnecessarily a bad thing in an aquarium. Alot of your higher end substrates are made of clay. I believe that ADA and lesco soilmaster select are a soft clay and ecocomplete is a fired clay.

The problem is that not all soil is the same. The clay that you find in georgia is different from the clay that you find in Ohio and so on.

I am not sure whether or not you can leave the clay in or not, but you may have answered your own question. If it took 2 days for the cloud to clear it probably will be very susceptible to disturbances, and cause cloudy water whenever the substrate is jostled.

If it were me I would take it out, but to do that, you are probably going to be required to drain your aquarium and start over from scratch?

What is your current substrate, as to remove all of the clay you will need to remove all of your substrate from the tank and strain and wash it?

If you have inert gravel this should be fine, but if you have flourite or latte rite this could cause a problem as they are a clay substance themselves and I doubt you would ever truly get all of the clay you added out. If this is the case you might be best to leave it and live with it, or start over completely with new substrate.

More information on your tank would be helpful in trying to figure out how to attack this problem.

Size?
Substrate?
How much particulate is on the substrate?
DO you hate how it looks?
How easy does the water become cloudy when the substrate is disturbed?
Can you live with it in its current state?

[Lady Hobbs]

The laterite is red and horrible to remove. I can put my vac right to the bottom of the tank and suck it up until it runs clear then move the vac to another area. After a month I am still pulling it out. Every cloud burst covers my plants as well and the filter media.

No doubt it is one mess to work with.

Very good points to bring up HH.

[Incredulous_Ed]

Why is this in "Conroversial?"

[Drumachine09]

Why is this in "Conroversial?"


What are you talking about? Its in plants :ezpi_wink1:

[Incredulous_Ed]

Thanks a lot matt. now people think I'm crazy.

[Drumachine09]

Thanks a lot matt. now people think I'm crazy.



Hahaha, wait....you arent crazy?