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comment by rezzeJ
rezzeJ  ·  1532 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Hubski Craft Fair v1.50 - January 16, 2020

    I gave up on the aquarium community when they had their two-year-long affair with kitty-litter planted tanks

On a related note, quite a few bonsai tree owners (including myself) have their trees planted in specific brands of cat litter. It needs to be ones which are 100% moler clay. It's holds on to a lot of moisture whilst still providing good draining so that the roots don't become waterlogged.

Unfortunately, the brand of choice in the UK has recently been discontinued.





kleinbl00  ·  1532 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This was the thinking with the aquarium plants as well. Unfortunately the silting problems you get when you have a closed environment far overcome any theoretical benefits - drainage, for example, is moot when your entire ecosystem is underwater.

rezzeJ  ·  1531 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Logical. I did notice a lot of crap comes off of it during its first few soaks. It gets into the air and chokes you out. I wouldn't want my fish swimming around in that.

kleinbl00  ·  1531 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Right? Trick is, you just need to soak it long enough. "Long enough" appears to be "more years than you are willing to deal with."

The next move after "cat litter substrate" was "garden soil substrate" whereby people who will happily dip their plants in a 10% bleach solution for precisely 30 seconds were literally digging in fields and dumping it in with their cichlids.