So read quite a bit on dirt. For the novice among you, here is a brief primer (well not brief).
general-discussion/topic31551.html
The IDEA is to add clay to the substrate, with the hopes that it will hold onto nutrients that would otherwise wash out of the soil. These nutrients can the be uptaken by microfauna and eventually eaten by the frogs. The problem with pure clay is that it will eventually turn to a solid clay mass, and then nothing will be able to penetrate it. So some pioneers here have come up with some ways (more like attempts) around this. One idea that intrigued me was developed by Brent Brock, which essentially involves introducing plastic into the clay particle to keep them from mushing together over time. He uses a mix of Redart clay (red potting clay) and soil, which is then infused with acrylic cement bonder, which becomes plastic when it dries. An important aspect of this voodoo (and I mean voodoo as a compliment) is to introduce calcium into the soil, as calcium deficiency is not unheard of in this hobby. This is especially important if you don't plan on dusting you food, which I don't plan on doing. So I went to the University bookstore and bought some redart clay, and mixed it with some soil and some sand in a five gallon bucket. Brent recommends adding water until it forms little aggregates, and then laying it out to dry. I'm not sure if his clay comes dry, or what, but this was impossible for my. I started with a brick of clay and it was hellish to try and mix it with dirt. So I kept adding water. This eventually turned into wet mud.
I then smeared this mud out into a 1/2" thick piece of dough on a sheet of plastic in my apartment and let it dry. After a couple of days when it was in its sexy dirt state, I crumbled it apart like bleu cheese and let it dry some more. Then I sprayed some quikrete bonder on it, and then some more. Eventually I had nice little plastic covered dirt nuggets. I sure hope that quikrete is safe for long term exposure!
But that wasn't even half of it. I wanted to have four varieties of soil in my aquarium. So I decided that a great idea would be to mix portland cement with clay based soil! The cement would act to "cement" the particles together, and also gives off calcium as it cures! So when I made the soil as above, I actually split ti into two buckets, and to the second bucket I added a little portland cement. I should note here that I did do a trial and confirmed that I could make a product with the properties that I wanted. So all was going well, and I couldn't get over how smart I was, when I tested the pH. Woops. pH was almost 10, which almost uninhabitable, and in which many invertebrates cannot live. So I started spraying some vinegar on it. Then more. Then a whole bottle. Retest the pH... No change :cry: . So then I decided to try a little harder and procured some HCl. Added some of this... No change. The I added a bunch of HCl and noticed that my dirt was effervescing. This acid was acting on the calcium carbonate and giving off CO2 bubbles. I did somemore sleuthing online and found that by neutralizing the pH I would essentially by removing the cementing property of the cement. So I then gave up. Here is a picture of both kinds of dirt in my apartment. (dirt with plastic in it on the left, dirt with cement in it on the right). This is before I broke it all up.
And this is with it about ready to use.
My fiancee was incredibly nice during this period of a couple weeks, when we had a pile of dirt on our livingroom floor. She couldn't help but pointing out all the dirt everywhere that I could steal for free, and yet I had to make my own.
So anyway, the 4 kinds of dirt I ended up using were.
1) Dirt with plastic fortifier as described above.
2) Tree fern fiber, red mulch, peat moss and sphagnum moss.
3) Miracle grow organic garden soil, with a little red mulch and tree fern fiber for aeration
4) dirt with cement mixed in with red mulch, tree fern fiber and peat.
Hopefully these will provide some different micro habitats for a variety of microfauna as well as the frogs.
