Substrate?
- Thread starter BigFish
- Start date
Any substrate prepared for plants is going to do fine. Just choose the one you like the looks of most. I've seen hundreds of planted tanks that look awesome and not one substrate made the plants do any better or worse than the others. Fluorite and Eco-Complete are more popular, but only because they're more commercially available and have pretty colors on the bag.
Cheap: Fine river gravel or sand (sand will make it easier for plants to make a firm root system).
Expensive: Flourite. Inert, and won't leach anything into the water column but makes a great substrate for plants.
Expensive: Flourite. Inert, and won't leach anything into the water column but makes a great substrate for plants.
High Cation Exchange Capacity(CEC) clays work, those Profile, Turface, Soilmaster, and I just bought some Special Kitty, unscented cat litter today at wal mart. Moves nutrients well and they are light weight particles, so that the roots cant expand easier. And the price is one of the cheaper options. I bought mine 25 pounds for $2.75(even though that is higher than I have seen any one else pay lol). Fluorite for me is the 15ish pound bag for $26.
SeaChem makes florite and flourite sand. both are good for planted tanks. the have nutriants in it. some plants will not grow well in regular gravel as there are no nutriants and to much air space. florite coms in black, brown, red, and a mix of all. the sand is only in black.
I am about to build a substrate for a 150 gallon tank using a heating cable that author Peter Hiscock says is important for water circulation in the substrate. I bought 50 pounds of red bag Special Kitty Litter at Walmart for $2.50 per 25 pound bag. I have some sitting in a jar to see if it would turn to muck. It has not as yet. I understand that it will after awhile. I plan to put the KL in the back of the substrate. I have 60 pounds of Flourite that I bought on the internet for about $1 per pound plus about 25 cents shipping. I will add a layer of the Flourite over the 8 square feet of bottom on top of the KL. This will be topped by mini-pea gravel. I checked this gravel with vinegar and saw no bubbles suggesting it will not increase the pH of the water. I expect the KL to decrease the pH. I have naturally hard water and was thinking of growing plants that prefer hard water. I will have to wait and see what the final pH turns out to be.
I went to Google to find advice of KL. I saw more positive comments than negative and will try it for that reason.
I went to Google to find advice of KL. I saw more positive comments than negative and will try it for that reason.