"Michael" wrote in
:

I originally posted about my problem on r.a.f.m. but after doing
several hours of research this morning I now think it might be related
to my potting soil substrate so I'm posting this here. A really short
summary: I set up a new 60L (15 gallon) planted aquarium with potting
soil substrate (about 1") and quart on top (about 1").

I read Walstad's book and got pretty excited about potting soil for my
first planted tank.

Here are some things that the book didn't mention:

1. Soil works great for those folks who never move, remove, replant or add
plants, for as long as the tank lasts. That describes you, right?

2. Soil works great for those folks who don't have fish that rearrange
things. Your're not ever likely to have a pl*co, cichlid or loach, are you?

3. Some soil is just plain poison. Seems 5-10-20 years ago, someone
stripped the paint/changed the oil/sprayed insecticide/buried toxins/dumped
a car and engine block/emptied the amphetimine factory onto that piece of
dirt, and you just dropped all that right it into your tank. There's not a
lot of virgin earth around.

My first and only try at a soil tank killed all the fish. There are
probably hundreds of folks out there who have successful soil tanks, but I
suspect the list of failures is larger than the list of successes.