What Substrate Should I Use???

[jsamps]

I'm starting up a planted tank in a BioCube 29 that's currently being used as a saltwater reef tank. Is there anything I need to do besides give it a thorough scrubbing?

Also What kind of substrate is recommended for some of these easy plants: crypts, water sprite, anubias, wisteria, java moss, java fern, cryptocorynes, vallisneria, hornwort, dwarf hairgrass, etc...

I was looking at black flourite sand Aqua Soil & Eco-Complete Black. Are the Aqua Soil & Eco-Complete worth it, is one better than the other & am I leaving any others that I should consider.

Thanks.

 

[Jaykit]

You can grow plants in any type of substrate you want. All of my tanks are currently filled with just plain old playsand from homedepot or silca sand and all my plants are doing great. I do have root tabs for my swords and crypts and do dose ferts for my all plants.
The plants you mentioned are bulletproof and you could just drop them into the tank if you wanted and they would grow. If you wanted you could get a nice piece of driftwoood to attach the anubis, java fern, java moss, too

 

[Ozymandias]

tup basicly scrubing it down should do the trick.

ok when it come to substrates eco-complete and flourite are about equial in what thay do and the minerals that are in them in my opinion. flourite can be a pain to clean though because of how dusty it is. the sand can be a bit harder to was in my opinion but i still love the stuff. aqua soil is amazing stuff and it closer to dirt so has alot of organics in it.

personally i think you should be fine with just black sand and firt tabs if you are going low light. (how much light is on the Biocube?)

 

[jsamps]

How long do Aqua Soil, Eco-Complete & flourite last?


Lighting is another issue, here is the current lighting configuration:

• Stock 36W compact fluorescents
• 1 actinic
• 1 combination 10K and actinic.
• Main light is a 70W metal halide, with a 14K ushio bulb.

I know its way too much, I'm thinking I will have to replace some of this, not sure with what & I'd prefer to stay away from CO2 for starters.

 

[Ozymandias]

well flourite and eco-complete will take so long to break down it usually doesn't mater i believe. aqua soil last about 3 years i believe (not sure but i remember reading some thing like that). after that it more like mud or clay (again this is from what ive read) people still use it in this state especially when making some aquas-capes that are supposed to look like mountains.


ya quite a bit of light, you might look into the T5 reto fits that are out there for the biocubes i would stay abround the 2 WPG to 1 WPG. you could also just use one CP build in the 6500K-10000K but i would feel beter with just a tad bit more light say a total of 45 watts but that just me.

also even if you added CO2 alot of it would be lost through the wet dry filtration in the bio-cube. so good idea on wanting to stay away from it because i feel the biocube as is isn't the best for a high light planted tank.

again you might find it cheaper to use some type of sand, i know the 3m colorcortz is cheap (if you can find it) and comes in different colors. all you would really have to do is but some fertilizer tabs into it ever once and a while and you set.

if you do go with a plant substrate i would stay away from the aqua soil just to keep nice and simple. would probably do flourite black sand just because it a more uniform black and finer grained then the eco-complete.