Aqua Soil -Amazonia has been used as substrate material for growing aquatic plants. Aqua Soil - Amazonia is produced from natural black soil as a base material, and it is very effective for growing aquatic plants, but there is a case the aquarium water turns yellow at initial stage of aquarium setup, due to the property of humic acid, contained in the black soil. This is especially apparent right after the aquarium setup. Please maintain the aquarium layout with following points in mind.

Initial Stage Maintenance

ADA's Aqua Soil - Amazonia is a popular substrate material which has been widely used for planted aquariums. Made of natural black soil, the soil encourages the growth of aquatic plants. In some cases, however, one of the active ingredients of Amazonia, humic acid, may leach out into the aquarium water and stain the water yellow. This is often reported during the initial set up period of an aquarium. Please keep the following instructions in mind when you first set up a new aquarium tank.

Aqua Soil-Amazonia was developed mainly for promoting the growth of aquatic plants effectively. Its black soil contains plenty of humic acid which helps the plants' healthy growth. Among the products of the Aqua Soil series, Amazonia shows the best performance in terms of the growth of plants.

However, humic acid has a characteristic for seeping into water and turning the water yellow under an alkaline environment. It is more likely seen during the initial set up period of a tank, when Amazonia's black soil contains a lot of humic acid. Humic acid is a natural substance and it will not disturb the health of fish and aquatic plants inside the tank. But if you are not comfortable with the cloudiness of water made by humic acid, we recommend you to take out excessive organic matter by frequent water changes. It will help reducing the cloudiness of the water though the result differs depending on the growth of the plants and the frequency of water changes. You may also use NA carbon and let it adsorb humic acid dissolved into the aquarium water. Right after setting up an aquarium, ammonia is generally present in the water. In case the pH value becomes alkaline over 7.0, ammonia levels may turn to be highly toxic and harm the fish and shrimp in the tank. You should always make sure to check the pH value of the tap water before a regular water change.

Caution

Note 1:
At the initial set-up stage of a tank where the bacteria filtration is still immature, the water inside aquarium may also turn cloudy because of excessive organic matters dissolved into the water. We should suspect that microbes fed by those organic matters are floating in the water. In such a case, applying a UV sterilizer to the tank is effective.

Note 2:
When tap water is left for a while, the water condition generally becomes mildly alkaline as CO2 dissolved in the water is released to the air and pH level goes up (Original pH level of the tap water fluctuates with carbonate hardness (KH) level of the water). By conducting aeration, CO2 dissolved in the aquarium water is also released to the air and pH level rises (usually the water becomes mildly alkaline). When using Amazonias with its own pH level from 6.6 to 6.8, the pH level of water does not get lower because they perform poorly on reducing the pH level, and depending on the usage condition of them, water may become mildly alkaline with pH level around 7.5 which is the same level when aeration was done with tap water left for a while. Therefore, in case of using tap water with high carbonate hardness (KH) or commercially available filtration media such as activated carbon which has a property of raising pH level, with the exception of ADA NA Carbon, please note that pH level of aquarium water may get even higher