I'm starting a large marine planted tank. I have a bucket of live sand collected from a friend's back yard, at the mouth of a mangrove filled estuary where the Caloosahatchee river exits into the gulf of Mexico. Probably the equivalent of mineral mud, I suppose. I sifted it through a home made screen sifter to get all the heavy, unwanted debris out, mainly shells, leaves and plant material. Now it's sitting in a tub of fresh SW with a power head.
Has anyone here ever used 'wild' mud, and if so, what other things have you done to prep it for tank use besides mix with aragonite or silica?
I imagine the 'mineralized topsoil' process could be used here, to avoid introducing so much organics that are not bioavailable to the plants and macros yet, but ripe for algae soup. But is it counterproductive being that you'd be killing off some bacteria and microbes by repetitively drying it out? If they were killed off, surely they'd be able to repopulate in the tank? I think it could be a good compromise for avoiding explosive nitrogen spikes, but then I'm not sure it's really that big of a deal because I'm still pretty new to live sand and marine planted tanks.
Has anyone here ever used 'wild' mud, and if so, what other things have you done to prep it for tank use besides mix with aragonite or silica?
I imagine the 'mineralized topsoil' process could be used here, to avoid introducing so much organics that are not bioavailable to the plants and macros yet, but ripe for algae soup. But is it counterproductive being that you'd be killing off some bacteria and microbes by repetitively drying it out? If they were killed off, surely they'd be able to repopulate in the tank? I think it could be a good compromise for avoiding explosive nitrogen spikes, but then I'm not sure it's really that big of a deal because I'm still pretty new to live sand and marine planted tanks.
