I am about to start my new 230 litre aquarium. It will be aplanted tank and I am trying to find a dark plant and fish barbel friendly substrate. I want the substrate to be dark as Dwarf neon rainbow fish look absolutely stunning with a dark substrate. I currently have fairly pale natural gravel in my existing tank and when the rainbows hang out over the dark bogwood the transformation is unbelievable. I am also going to keep Cardinal tetras and have heard that they look best with a dark substrate. I have stumbled on a substrate called Onyx sand by Seachem. Although I have never actually seen it sounds ideal. It is apperently dark grey to black with small sand sized grains and is a total plant substrate. Seachem are going to send me a sample through the post but I was wondering if anybody out there has seen or used it and can give me some feedback on its suitability as a planted community tank substrate. Thanks
Onyx sand by Seachem
- Thread starter nid
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reiverix is correct. I also have it and hoped it would be black. It is certainly more grey but works great. I have sinced covered it with natural gravel so color is no longer an issue.
Another thought, if you're going to go planted, you'll likely get a "ground cover" plant and you won't see much of your substrate anyway
Another thought, if you're going to go planted, you'll likely get a "ground cover" plant and you won't see much of your substrate anyway
Thanks for the feedback. onyx sand does appear to be a bit paler than I had hoped. The pictures of your tanks are absolutely stunning. I hope I too can eventually achieve results like those. I have started using a simple co2 diffusioun system by Tetra. I started using it 20 days ago and the improvement in my plant growth is already very apparent. One clump of Echinodorus x bartii has tripled in size in 20 days. the leaves are now a deep russet red and huge. My Java fern is growing and has never looked better and my Hygrophilia actually looks like its finally enjoying life. I cant wait to start my new tank and really concentrate on the creation of a planted tank. i am looking out for a nutrafin co2 system as I have heard they are good and I think more sustainable than my current tetra system. this system involves squirting c02 from a cannister into a diffusion tube. Each fill of the diffusion tube lasts about 8 hours and I fill them once a day at lights on. I think a constant stable supply is probably a better way forward for both the fish and the plants. The water here is very hard and alkaline so is well buffered but its not an ideal system. Thanks again.