soil recipe part 1
As promised (although late) here is my soil recipe(s). These are not yet thoroughly tested so please use at your own risk.
Right now I have 2 methods for getting soil into my tanks. The first method involves getting local soil and changing it both by amending it and by applying physical processes.
The IAD display tank and the Lorenzo tinctorius tank I set up last night were made this way.
The IAD tank and the Lorenzo had their soil made in the same way but were set up differently.
The main soils for each of these tanks was composed by starting with local soil, preferably of high clay/silt content and low sand content (this may be difficult for some of you to obtain depending on your location). For the IAD tank I started with a red/orange clay from Staten Island (not sure of the soil type), for the Lorenzo tank I started with soil from my Garden in Ithaca (grayish glacial till soil). It is a composed of Loess (a combination of silt/clay). For both soils I pushed them through a 2 mm screen, it is actually a screen lid from a fish tank (not the fine mesh, the next size up). This is best done when the soil still has moisture but is not wet or really dry. The soil should crumble in your hand when you apply force to it, not deform, and not crack and get powdery. You should form little aggregates in your hand (to me one of the sexiest states a soil can be in).
After I did this I discarded all of the rocks, roots, and gravel that did not pass through the sieve. I then mixed in some iron oxides (lets say ~1 TBSP per quart/liter of soil). For the Lorenzo tank I used black iron oxide, for the IAD tank I used red and yellow iron oxides.
Then I sprayed the soil down enough just enough to get it to clump up again. The oxides should be “activated” by the water and get more intense in color and wet/sticky. Mix around the soil until it is uniform. Do it gently, it doesn’t have to be completely homogeneous. Let it sit out and dry until it is crumbly again as mentioned above. Pass this soil through the sieve again. You now have a local soil augmented with iron oxides.
From here on I will describe what I did for each tank separately:
The IAD tank has a soil layer 6.5 cm (2.5 inches) thick. The tank has a false bottom made of eggcrate panel, covered by 7-mesh, then by fine nylon screen, and finally a layer of brown paper towels (which I am sure has rotted out by now). The paper towels prevent the soil from washing through the screen before it has had a chance to settle and develop some structure. The first layer over the towels was a layer of reddish sand (any sand will do) ~1 cm thick. This was then covered by a layer of the soil made earlier, 5.5 cm thick. It was just poured in and moved around lightly with out any hard packing. I put in the plants (mostly just roots and whatever soil they held from the original pot), wood pieces, and logs. I covered the soil with crushed up oak leaves, and then slowly wet the soil by spraying it with a spray bottle. It takes a while but is necessary to wet the soil without causing it to break (similar to gentle rain). The oak leaf pieces protect the soil from the impact of the water and facilitate its infiltration. I add enough water until the false bottom has about 5-10 mm of water in it.
I added 6 neonate canal zone auratus froglets to his tank 2 months after its creation and seeding with springtails. I routinely add kitchen scraps (veggie pieces) and never feed it with flies. The frogs reached full size in less than 3 months! I am not sure if it is due to the arthropod fauna, soil, or both.
The Lorenzo tank is 10 gallons (standard). The soil is 3.6 cm thick composed of 3 layers. The first layer (over the paper towel) is a layer of perlite that was crushed and passed through a 2 mm mesh and then mixed with some soil and iron oxide (1.2 cm thick). The second layer is a mix of 50% augmented soil and 50% ironed perlite (1.2 cm thick) the last layer is just the iron augmented soil (1.2 cm thick). I then covered it with leaves and logs and watered it as mentioned above. This time I also added Styrofoam packing peanuts under the false bottom to act as a surface for biofilm formation to aid in nutrient cycling.
The Lorenzo pair laid eggs within 24 hours of being in this tank!
http://www.frognet.org/gallery/album41
any questions or anything I left out?
The second method is to fabricate a soil from pure ingredients from a pottery company. I have made some soil this way but have yet to “put it to the test” in a tank. Worthy of note though is that the IAD tank did contain a small amount of soil made this way and it looks indistinguishable from the amended soil even after almost 5 months. (will write more on this in the next post)
