It was a long one, too.
It started last night, when I made the horrible mistake of going out during Festival of Lights traffic just to get to Lowe's to get some organic potting soil. It was a freaking nightmare. And when I finally got to Lowe's, of course they had no organic potting soil. Why I wasn't smart enough to call first, I'll never know.
But this morning I got through to Nicky's Garden Center and they dug through their leftovers and found me a bag of organic potting soil. When I got it home, I was hesitant. The bag said, "Worm casings, bat guano, aloe vera" and a plethora of other things. I quickly began Googling. I came up with no answer. For a time I just sat and decided to do the tank another day. I even placed an order with Petco for a third bag of Eco Complete. Then I had second thoughts, and canceled the order. I decided that any organic soil is probably going to have fertilizer in it; isn't that the reason why I'm using it? Because soil grows green shit? (That was half joke, half algae reference.) If it's not bat guano, it's cow or chicken guano. I did find an earthworm in there. Bless his heart; he survived all this time in his bag of soil. I promptly fed him to the fish. A female congo tetra snagged him and swam furiously away from her tankmates, with the worm trailing behind. He didn't last long. Again, I feel guilty. Where would he have gone if I'd put him outside? He's a worm, man.
Anyway. I sent a message to Rivercats, aka Janis, asking about this soil/Eco C cap thing. She didn't respond within two hours so I just gave up and did it.
Here was the response she ultimately sent along:
Beginning any planted tank can be intimidating so don't feel bad, just go in with a positive attitude. Even with non dirted tanks most all new planted tanks go through algae issue, mine included, while its going through it's stages until it matures and balances. People who use certain types of sand or just use it to thickly can have hydrogen sulfide gas issues. In a dirted tank you will get gas the first 4-6 weeks due to the organic soil breaking down. All you do is get something like a BBQ fork and poke around your substrate a few times a day. That releases the gas and doesn't allow for pocket build-ups. Also you will get tannins in the beginning and the way I combated them was to change 100% of the water for 7 days while also running my filter with Purgen, then on day 8 I planted about 80-90% of the tank. On day 10 I was cycled. You will diatoms really fast so on day 10 I added my Longfin Albino BNP from another tank along with nerite snails and MT snails.
One thing when you add the soil only wet it enough to make it rather damp and you should be able to pick up a handful and ball it up in your fist without it running out like mud. Reason for this is if you get it too wet your cap will just pull down in the soup and your kind of screwed. Also use your hand/fist to compact that soil down as hard as you can so you get as much of the air out, this is important also. Then carefully lay down your cap, don't just dump. Then use a plate/bowl and lay it on the cap and slowly fill the tank using the plate is displace the water. Also don't run your lights until you plant.
After planting only run your lights 6-8 hours max as there will be tons of excess nutrients in the water and add long photoperiods to that and you'll really get algae. Also having floating plants in the beginning helps with excess nutrients along with planting things like water sprite, wisteria, and fast growing stem plants. And I don't know why anyone would say you can only plant certain kinds of plants is beyond me. That is the whole idea of having a dirted tank so you can grow anything if you have the right lights.
I think I added the first root tabs around the end of the second month. I don't use Seachem root tabs like alot of the people on AA do, I use the root tabs from AquariumPlant.com. They have different root tabs, I get the Total for all around ferts to roots, but then I get Phosphate root tabs for my swords because swords like excess phosphates at their roots. Then I get the Iron root tabs for all my non-green plants, crypts, and also give the swords a couple. I bought one of the tab applicators they sell so I don't have to stick my arm in the tank and try to not distrub other plants while putting in tabs. Janis
So, that was ultimately the answer, but it came too late. The only thing I didn't do was smash down the soil before capping it, and I did indeed dump out the Eco C. Oh well. How much harm it did I may never know. I think it'll be just fine. I wish I'd remembered to take a photo before I started filling it up. There was about an inch and a half, or a bit less, of soil, and then two bags (40 pounds) of EC. In the front I'd say I have 3.5 inches. In the back it may be 4.5 inches. That's a bit too much, so I may want to take out an inch tomorrow.
I got the filter assembled and yoinked a sponge and a biowheel I had stuffed into the Cascade 1000. I put the glass lid on there. I put the light on there. And the damn light didn't work. So...there's that. And that's why it's not planted at this moment.
Edit: Rivercats told me to chill, let the substrate settle. It'll be fine.
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