Substrates

biondoa · Mar 17, 2015

I'd love to hear from all of the planted tank experts on this. There are a number of substrates out there that say they are great for plants. Some require rinsing , some do not. Some, supposedly, will not cloud the water, and some will. One person said that the Eco Complete smelled terrible for days. Someone mentioned that some are easier to plant in than others.
My question is, which one do you like the best and why.
I look forward to your replies.

FreshyFresh · Mar 17, 2015

I'm not an expert, but I've had great luck with low/medium light setups and nothing more than ordinary gravel. I have lots of water column feeding plants and some rooted. I have used FloraMax and had no better grow rate with that than gravel. I dose liquid ferts occasionally and occasional root tabs (very rarely).

jpappy789 · Mar 17, 2015

I like eco completes color, grain size and decent CEC. Never noticed a smell.

But it's expensive, particularly if you don't have a local source.

Regular gravel or silica sand is cheap and can be enough fir a lot of plants.

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JackLantern · Mar 17, 2015

I like sand. the kind for making concrete as it also has gravel mixed it. it doesn't to anything to my pH
easy to plant in
fish seems to like it

but i did make mistake and used really fine sand at first, it looked nice but it would never settle

plants are growing fine in it w/o root tabs.
easy plants, fern, anacharis, cabamba, vals, jenny, etc

Steven 1 · Mar 21, 2015

A friend who has 15 years in underwater plant-keeping sticks to sand, and I would too if I hadn't put in Miracle Gro Organic Choice Potting Soil in the past year. My plants started growing much faster, so I thought, "Why don't I fertilize something less than Estimated Index?"

ROYWS3 · Mar 22, 2015

the point is you are going to get as many opinions on substrates as there are substrates, everyone liking their choice for their specific reason

biondoa · Mar 26, 2015

Well I ended up choosing Eco Complete. I will let you know how it goes.

JackLantern · Mar 26, 2015

don't all the premium substrates get deleted over time anyway?

FreshyFresh · Mar 27, 2015

JackLantern said:
don't all the premium substrates get deleted over time anyway?

They do. Same with using soil as part of the substrate.


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Substrates

biondoa

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jpappy789

Plants need meat too

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