I just wanted to give a short positive review of the ADA Amazonia after using it for 3 weeks. All initial impressions are quite positive! The PH is staying in the 6's so far, so my Apistos love it. Planting in it is great. The stem of the plant easily inserts into it (you don't have to wiggle thru compacted sand, breaking the stem), and then when you pull the tweezers out, the granuales quickly fill it, holding the plant in place.
My rotala indica has at least tripled in amount, if not more. My hygrophilia difformis has at least doubled. I pulled one of the hygrophilia stems out to make room for more l. arromatica, and I couldn't believe the root system in just 3 weeks!
I haven't had any algae problems, but the tank itself was already established prior to switching Onyx sand for Amazonia, so I don't know if I can attribute too much credit here. I will note, that all of this is just with one 2L Yeast bottle for CO2 on a 40G breeder tank. I can't imagine the growth if this was on a pressurized system.
My only concern is with the lifespan of this stuff. The latest TAG from the AGA has an article translated from Amano, that states that after time, the effectiveness of aquasoil diminishes, so Amano will scoop it out, and replace with fresh aquasoil. As expensive as this stuff is, I hope this doesn't happen anytime soon for me.
Besides that, if you can afford it, I highly recommend it.
-Kris
ADA Amazonia Substrate - Amazing!
Yeah... I did make one mistake in that I didn't fully understand the "ADA Substrate System" when setting my tank up, so I forgot to add powersand underneath the aquasoil. Make sure you do all the reading. They recommend that you add a number of their product underneath the aquasoil. (Powersand, Turlamine BC, etc)
Luckily, I have an extra bag of powersand, and Amazonia, so I'll be setting up my 20G breeder tank correctly sometime soon!
Luckily, I have an extra bag of powersand, and Amazonia, so I'll be setting up my 20G breeder tank correctly sometime soon!
