Coarse substrate or fine substrate?

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killacross

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Apr 13, 2010
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I have two planted tanks...

one a fish tank...one a shrimp tank

both have ActiveFlora substrate but different colors

the fish tank has coarse floragems (gravel texture)

the shrimp tank has fine black (more sand texture)

my carpet plants seem to grow so much faster and fuller in the coarse substrate...

like Ive had a clover carpet (eventually tired of it and sold it off)...I had a HC carpet (lost patience with it after 6-7months it hadnt completely filled in, not to mention constantly uprooting itself, sold it off) Ive had a hairgrass carpet (and then made the mistake of adding java moss, so it looked like a mess, sold it off) I just had a glosso carpet (just lost interest with it so sold off like 99.97% of it and put the remainder in my shrimp tank) and now Im working on a sagittaria carpet (about a week in and the plants have just now acclimated so...in about 3 months should be good to go)

but when I moved some HC to my shrimp tank with the fine gravel...it never really took off...the hairgrass never moved...the glosso is starting to grow...but it grows different...the roots dont seem to penetrate the substrate and I was wondering if a coarse gravel is just all around better for carpeting plants

your opinions/experiences?
 

killacross

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Apr 13, 2010
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(since no one else will)

well...its been my experience that a coarse substrate is good for plants with big roots (swords, glosso, sagittaria etc) and a fine substrate is good for plants with small roots (HC for example)

basically...match the roots with teh substrate


hope that helps
 

killacross

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Apr 13, 2010
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WOW! thanks killacross


that was very helpful...and it sounds like youre probably right! Ill try to keep that in mind for the future...the real question now is...what to do since I already have a tank with the fine stuff but only a few fine root plants? hmm....
 

captaincaveman9

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Oct 2, 2006
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I have had completely different results, I fond the plant roots have more to do nutrients in the substrate and lighting than the size of the substrate...
 

JasonO

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Mar 28, 2010
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I have recently tried a fine substrate, after using mainly courser stuff. I have been having plant problems with it, plants just don't seem to grow as well and I am actually considering moving to a more course substrate over top of it.

Personally I have also found that this smaller substrate is harder to take care of since I can't gravel vac it very easily, as it just get sucked up.

I agree with the root size thing somewhat as my larger rooted plants seem to be having trouble with this smaller substrate, but maybe I am just being impatient.

I don't know what brand this substrate is, but it supposedly is one for a planted tank. But the maintenance issues just make it annoying for me.
 

Ozymandias

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first off the substrate size usually doesn't mater what maters is fertilization, and yes this even counts for substrates made for plants. most of those substrates have low levels of stuff in them for plant what thay did have is higher than normal CEC ratings this rating is to tell you how much the substrate can take in of fertilizers and slowly relies them to the plant roots.

for gravel vacing if you have a heavily plant tank you usually don't need to vac it much. instead you sworl you hand over the substrate to pick up detritus the suck it up.
 

aj2494

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Jul 31, 2008
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I have a sand bottom tank, but it's not planted. Anyways, if you have decent filter flow, since the stuff doesn't settle in the sand, the filter will pick it up. If not, you just hover over the sand with the gravel vac. Sure you lose some sand, but not much.
 
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