substrate
- Thread starter jakerampage
- Start date
Some people use cat litter with peat under it. Some use Mineralized top soil and top it off with pool sand. Thats if you want to go low cost route. You can buy a commercial brand, i've tried them all and have my preferences:
1: ADA Aquasoil- It's good cuz it keeps ph and hardness down for plants and it comes in different granule sizes. Aquasoil leeches amonia(good for plants) in the initial stages, so be careful and don't mess with the substrate too much at first. One thing that helps is some sort of substrate fert must be under it, or you can use root tabs at the source of the plants...pita
2:Seachem Flourite(black is my fav)- This is a really good substrate. The look of the black is awesome, and it has some ferts in the substrate.
3: ***-complete- good for the most part. It may be just me, but this stuff grows algae big time on the substrate itself. I know this because i set up a tank one time and i didn't have enough aquasoil, so my sone gave me the rest of his flourite, but i still needed more. lol I bought a bag of ecco-complete and used it to finish the tank off(put it in the middle-tank looks like a valley) and gda algae only grew on the ecco-complete. I asked around and mad peeps said the same.
Aquasoil is expensive, but worth it imo.
1: ADA Aquasoil- It's good cuz it keeps ph and hardness down for plants and it comes in different granule sizes. Aquasoil leeches amonia(good for plants) in the initial stages, so be careful and don't mess with the substrate too much at first. One thing that helps is some sort of substrate fert must be under it, or you can use root tabs at the source of the plants...pita
2:Seachem Flourite(black is my fav)- This is a really good substrate. The look of the black is awesome, and it has some ferts in the substrate.
3: ***-complete- good for the most part. It may be just me, but this stuff grows algae big time on the substrate itself. I know this because i set up a tank one time and i didn't have enough aquasoil, so my sone gave me the rest of his flourite, but i still needed more. lol I bought a bag of ecco-complete and used it to finish the tank off(put it in the middle-tank looks like a valley) and gda algae only grew on the ecco-complete. I asked around and mad peeps said the same.
Aquasoil is expensive, but worth it imo.