potting soil

[Invisiblefish]

I currently have an all fake plant tank, but I was looking at the "snail free" live plants at petsmart today and it got me considering a change.

I have sand substrate in my tank right now, if I decide to start swaping out some of my fake plants for real ones, will I have to put some kind of soil under the sand?

This is sort of a make or break for me, not sure I want to mess with completely redoing the entire tank.

Thanks!!!!

 

[Trigger1985]

My planted tank, as well as many others use play sand as substrate. You may need root tabs, or fertalizers to get really good growth out of the plants, depending on the type, but sand should be fine. Another option is to get some flourite, rinse it really well and sprikle it on top of the sand for the added nutriets.

 

[Turbosaurus]

Nah. gravel is just fine. You never use potting soil in an aquarium, ever.
If you wanted to go all out with some real lighting, pressurized CO2, rare demanding plants and really do it up planted style there are some specialty substrates (or look into MS/mineralized substrate).

If you're just getting your feet wet with planted aquariums- gravel is fine- or any other inert substrate, play sand, pea gravel, etc

Specifically, the plants you find at your major chain store do not need any special dirt.

 

[Turbosaurus]

PS- some don't need to be planted in the substrate at all- so when you get your plants, post pics here with a request for ID and proper care, better yet, buy them here from the swap/classified section to make sure you are getting tru aquatics and not just bog plants than can survive only temporally submerged

 

[schaadrak]

If you just want a few small, low maintenance, plants, you can't go wrong with the ultimate trio: Java fern, Java moss, and Anubias nana. They will survive on very little light, they get their nutrients directly from the water and they do not need to be planted in the soil. Just throw them in and walk away.

Stem plants do not require special soil/substrate either, though they require a little more light. Some good stem plants are Elodea (or Anacharis), hornwort, pennywort, cabomba, ludwiga, and rotala.

 

[Trigger1985]

I had just circled back to mention that.. Make sure you research the plant (sceintific name is best if you can get it) and make sure it's true aquatic. Chains and small shops are notorious for selling non-true aquatics. I was at Petsmart last week- and every plant that was sold glued to drift wood was a non-aquatic plant.

 

[schaadrak]

You never use potting soil in an aquarium, ever.

Not true. Lots of people's tanks use top soil or potting soil capped with sand or gravel and have excellent results. Do an image search on the Walstad method, there are hundreds of great looking tanks.

 

[Linda S]

I'm reading her book ECOLOGY OF THE PLANTED AQUARIUM right now. Changed my way of thinking.

 

[Turbosaurus]

Not true. Lots of people's tanks use top soil or potting soil capped with sand or gravel and have excellent results. Do an image search on the Walstad method, there are hundreds of great looking tanks.

Uh, nO. They don't use potting soil. :duh: I don't need to look. I repeat, no one uses potting soil in a plated tank.

They use mieralized top soil as mentioned in my previous post (if they know what they are doing) or plain top soil or sifted garden dirt if they dont. VERY VERY different from potting soil.

You'd think dirt is dirt, but it aint. Either way. Use gravel

 

[crimsonmoon]

I have four tanks set up with miracle grow organic potting soil and capped with sand, they are all flourishing. Dont worry about whether "potting" or "top" is put before soil on the label, the main thing is you need to be sure you know what you're doing before you go and dump a bunch of dirt in your tank.

I would just go with gravel or sand like you have now, just as turbo said above. It will be fine as long as you don't buy fragile, needy plants by mistake. Listen to turbo and you'll be fine, she knows what shes talking about