Need advice before I restart 3 tanks. Can I thoroughly rinse aquasoil and reuse it?
I've only been in the aquarium hobby for about 3 months so I'm still learning. I currently have 8 nano tanks, all running sponge filters because I keep guppies and bettas.
I recently moved to a new house so I rescaped all of my tanks. For three of them, the largest ones, I decided to try a cheaper aquasoil from a brand called Sealpha. It cost me the equivalent of about $13, quite a bit less than the aquasoil I'd used before.
Unfortunately, it's been nothing but problems.
The good thing is there are no fish in these three tanks yet, so I'm not worried about livestock. The tanks have been set up for about 1.5 weeks now, and I've been doing 50% water changes every other day.
Every single water change, I have to scrub the glass with a brush because it develops a very stubborn line at the water level along with a dusty film. The water level line is surprisingly hard to remove and I don't think it's simply because my water is hard since my other five tanks don't have this issue at all.
There's also a layer of fine dust covering the substrate, hardscape, plants and even floating on the water surface. When I scrub the glass with the brush, it comes away covered in white dust. My sponge filters are gradually turning white from all the fine particles they're collecting and I squeeze them out in a bucket of tank water every water change because they get clogged so quickly.
The plants have also been difficult to clean. Even after swishing them around in water, the dust sticks to them. My floating plants have actually sunk because they've become coated in this fine dust.
Today, while doing another water change, I found myself scrubbing the glass, rocks, wood and plants yet again. That's when I decided I'd rather tear down and redo these three tanks than keep fighting this every couple of days.
I've already ordered HOB filters, filter wool and an algae scraper to help with the cleanup but now I'm wondering about the substrate itself.
If I tear the tanks down, is it safe to thoroughly rinse this aquasoil several times to remove as much of the dust as possible before setting it back up? I know aquasoil usually isn't meant to be washed but at this point I'm wondering if the excess dust is the real problem.
The only issue is that I don't have any other aquasoil left. I only have about 10 kg of sand but most of the plants in these tanks are root feeders and I only have a handful of root tabs left. I'd also rather not cap the aquasoil with sand since that's not the look I'm going for. So I'd really like to salvage this aquasoil if possible instead of throwing it away.
This has definitely been a lesson for me. I tried to save a little money by buying cheaper aquasoil and instead it's turned into weeks of frustration. Next time I'll probably just stick with higher quality brands instead of trying to cut costs on something as important as the substrate.
Has anyone experienced anything like this? Would you rinse the aquasoil and reuse it, or would you just replace it entirely?