Soil capped substrate for large tank

So, I'm turning the huge aquarium my brother used to house a crested gecko into a fish tank (taking everything out of my two smaller 15 and 23-gallon tanks and putting it in this larger tank once it's cleaned, set up, and cycled). Thing is, aquasoil is expensive and while I will have some from these two smaller tanks, I don't think it will be enough to cover the bottom and be deep enough. Because of this, I was wondering if mixing the aquasoil with some fertilizer-free, organic gardening soil (some extra Kellogg All Natural Gardening Soil that I used to redo my ball python tank) would work instead.

Plan is to put that soil mixed with root tabs and aquasoil as a bottom layer, cover it with gravel in areas where I want more height, then cap all of that with sand. Would that work without causing a mess or leeching things into the water? I don't plan on redoing the scape once I put everything in but I do have a group of cory catfish that will be in there and I know how they like to shuffle through the sand. I'm hoping the gravel layer would keep most of the soil down even if they did.

 

I’m no fan of using garden soil in a tank. It’s just a mess and doesn’t last long so in about 2 years you may have to remove it. Next I think the sand will just sift through the gravel. New aquasoils also add ammonia to the tank. Which will take the tank longer to cycle. How big is the new tank? What types of plants do you plan to grow? I just use gravel. The smallest I can find.

 

Mixing organic garden soil and Aquasoil should work fine.

In places you want more height, I'd recommend first placing something cheap and inert like crushed lava rock. Then, put the soil on top of that. And finally, cap the soil with sand.

I have a tank with cory catfish that has soil capped with sand. The sand is about an inch thick, and that has been enough to keep the corys out of the soil.

 

I’m no fan of using garden soil in a tank. It’s just a mess and doesn’t last long so in about 2 years you may have to remove it. Next I think the sand will just sift through the gravel. New aquasoils also add ammonia to the tank. Which will take the tank longer to cycle. How big is the new tank? What types of plants do you plan to grow? I just use gravel. The smallest I can find.

The tank is a 60 gallon tank according to a tank dimensions to gallon calculator (48inx14inx21in or 122cmx35.5cmx53cm).

The plants and fish I'd be putting in are from 15gal and 23gal tanks that I already have. These have hornwort, vals, crypt wendtii, java ferns, anubias, crypt parva, amazon swords, ludwigia, and dwarf sag. I would like to add more plants but stems don't like my tanks much (I'm stunned the ludwigia is alive in the 23 gal but it's the only tank stems like).

I usually do a layered substrate anyway. I got hooked on MD Fish Tank's youtube videos and do a similar thing that he does. Gravel, bags of aqua soil, all capped with sand. Haven't had any leeching from the aquasoil at all after redoing my tank scapes a few times either. I just have a bunch of leftover soil from redoing my snake tank and was wondering if it would work for the fishtank as well.

 

I've done garden soil layers, I've done aquasoil layers, don't see why a mix of both wouldn't work. An aquasoil layer would definitely be a lot less messy to deal with though, but if you're not planning to rescape the tank often, that's a nonissue.