Best Substrate For A Planted Tank?

[Huntress]

Hi, I was curious about a planted tank. Right now I am currently using gravel for my 26 gallon bow front tank but would like to switch it over to a planted tank setting.  I have one plant I purchased, the Amazon Sword right now in a plant pot from the fish store I purchased it from. Its doing quite well and looks great. Can I take a currently well established tank and do a switch over to a planted setting without messing up too much? Like if I did half gravel and some planted substrate. I was looking at the CaribSea substate. Unsure how to switch over as to I am utterly new to planted tanks.
Question is also
Do you need to vacuum the substate? How do you clean it or does it clean itself?
Curious I am
 
Thanks

 

[Akasha72]

Hi, I've found that you don't need anything fancy to have thriving plants. I've had both gravel and sand with plants and the plants have done well with both. I've currently got aquarium sand in my heavily planted tank, both of my large amazon swords have 'flowered' recently and today I took 18 baby amazon sword plants to my lfs just from one mother plant. 
 
I don't do anything special, there's just the sand substrate and the addition of fertilizer and liquid co2 and fish poo! 
 
A recent photo of my tank
 

 
As for cleaning ... you can vacuum gravel if you wish but fish poo will break down naturally and be used as a natural plant fert

 

[Huntress]

Beautiful tank. I love the plants!!! Thanks for the quick reply. Vacuuming can be tedious since my MG at times flares out at the worst times. And it would be awesome to just do water changed since my bow front I need to stick my whole arm in to get to the bottom. Now if I changed the gravel to a sand type based can I just scoop the gravel and replace with gravel or do I need to reset the whole tank? I hope not since my levels are perfect. I love that since adding the live Amazon Plant that my algae isn't popping up every where. Just the water is kinda murky because of the driftwood is kinda new still. Will the sand just sink?  I am new at this so curious about it all. lol

 

[Akasha72]

Thank you very much! Okay ... if you want to change to sand the easiest way is to remove everything - fish, decor, plants and then scoop out the gravel. The sand will need to be washed well before use as it is normal for it to be very dirty. 
 
By changing to sand you may see a mini cycle in the tank as there is lots of bacteria in the gravel so you'll need to keep an eye on ammonia and nitrite for a few days and I would set aside a full day to do this as it can take time.
 
There's various sands available. Aquarium sand can be expensive but you get a choice of coloured sand if that's what you want. If you prefer the natural look then children's play sand is safe to use

 

[Byron]

I concur with what Akasha has been suggesting.  If you do go with sand, I would recommend a neutral sand (brown, tan, black, grey or a combo mix like some play sand is); coloured substrates may look "nice" but they rarely work that well because they are not natural, and a neutral substrate will show off the fish and plant colours better.  Plus it will not attract your attention if it is not standing out via colour.
 
Byron.

 

[Huntress]

Thanks so much! I was looking at CaribSea, either EcoComplete, Planted, SuperNaturals or Floramax for a substrate.  Its like 20 dollars for a 20lb bag. I know you need to wash it well in a bucket with water till the water comes out clear otherwise the tank would be...ahhh!  Now will this effect my fish in any way. I have a 4 Cory cats, two Panda and two spotted. A few neon tetras and a few Mollys which by the way I have been giving the babies to my pet store like a mad woman. Lol. I wanna do away with the fake plants I know now to put only a plant at a time like fish because of the cycle.  Going to be some work but its worth it. Not really into the sandy look, I want more of a natural darker substrate. Anyone have any experience with CaribSea stuff? http/www.caribsea.com/index.html

 

 

[Byron]

 
Thanks so much! I was looking at CaribSea, either EcoComplete, Planted, SuperNaturals or Floramax for a substrate.  Its like 20 dollars for a 20lb bag. I know you need to wash it well in a bucket with water till the water comes out clear otherwise the tank would be...ahhh!  Now will this effect my fish in any way. I have a 4 Cory cats, two Panda and two spotted. A few neon tetras and a few Mollys which by the way I have been giving the babies to my pet store like a mad woman. Lol. I wanna do away with the fake plants I know now to put only a plant at a time like fish because of the cycle.  Going to be some work but its worth it. Not really into the sandy look, I want more of a natural darker substrate. Anyone have any experience with CaribSea stuff? http/www.caribsea.com/index.html
 
 

 
We had another thread discussion on this a couple weeks back.  Personally, I would not waste your money on these things.  And yes, they can seriously impact fish.
 
I used Flourite in a tank for two years before I tore it down and replaced it with play sand.  I cannot speak for all of these so-called "enriched substrates," but some of them certainly do nothing special.  Flourite and Eco-Complete are much the same; I went with Flourite because it felt non-abrasive in my hand, unlike Eco-Complete, and with substrate fish like most catfish (corys you mention), loaches, and other substrate-interactive fish (cichlids, etc) the sharpness of the substrate material is very important.  I had significant damage to my corys over Flourite.  From the perspective of plants, the same species were no better in the Flourite tank that they were in the gravel and sand tanks.  I still had to use substrate tabs and liquid fertilizers.  To my mind, spending $180 for one of these compared to $12 for play sand for the same tank space just doesn't make any sense.
 
Another issue with black substrates is that under the good lighting for plants, they look grey, and rather odd, plus every speck of detritus shows up.  I never have these issues with play sand, which I know have in all 8 tanks in my fish room.  You are in the US, so have a look at Home Depot and/or Lowe's, if they carry the Quikrete Play Sand.
 
As for cycling, this is not an issue with plants.  As Akasha said, if you change the substrate, tear down the tank and rebuild it.  Move the fish to a temporary tank.  It is much easier, and you can take you time.  I've done this more times than I care to remember, but I never regret the result.
 
Byron.

 

[NickAu]

I have pea gravel as substrate.
 

 
I don't do anything special, there's just the sand substrate and the addition of fertilizer and liquid co2 and fish poo!

Thats doing a bit.
 
I on the other hand only change 50% water every week and use Easy-Life Fluid Filter Media, I do not vacuum the gravel, I do not remove and dead leaves, Heck I hardly ever even clean the front glass, as for fertilizer other than fish poo I dont use the stuff. 
 
Contents of tank.
17 Kuhli Loaches.
Well over 100 Red Cherry Shrimp.
2 Medium Mystery snails.
1 Betta.
And god knows how many Malaysian Trumpet Snails.

 

[Huntress]

I purchased a 20lb bag of sand from Petco, sand colored and a small black 5lb bag of black sand.  I am wondering if it really is good though. I am hoping the sand colored doesn't get dirty looking, does anyone have that issue and has anyone used the Petco brand sand before? It cost a dollar a lb which isn't too bad plus I had Petco pal rewards with 5 dollars off.  I read that you need to take out the fish before you can put the sand in. Is this true? Even if I use a cup to put the sand in? Will it get really cloudy? I was also reading to wait till it unclouded before adding fish again.
 
Thanks so much for all your info.
Sorry I am asking a zillion questions

 

[Akasha72]

you will need to wash the new sand thoroughly. Add the sand to a large bucket  and get water running through it. A lot of the dirty will rise to the top straight away as a brown froth. Pour that away and keep going until the water runs clear. You'll probably need to get your hands in and stir the water around to get it really clean.
 
Yes, you'll need remove the fish. This will be a very stressful process for them. I've tried to do it with fish in the tank and they were very stressed fish. They took days to recover from it.
 
You'll need to switch your tank filter off as grains of sand could get into it during the switching process and this can lead to the motor jamming.
 
If you remove 50% of the water from the tank for this process you'll make it easy on yourself. You can then use fresh water to top back up once your done. This will help with any cloudy water. You can expect to see some cloudiness from it but the cleaner you can get the sand the less cloudy it will be
 
if you have a look at this it'll show you what I mean about washing the sand http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/441420-yet-another-tank-journal-by-ch4rlie/
Schroll down to post 7 

 

[NickKillick]

I've been experimenting with using a soil substrate underneath gravel and it has worked wonders so far. It's damn cheap in comparison to specialist aquarium soils, I just did a bit of research on what was in the soil first to make sure it was safe. 
 
It has to be done on a new or empty tank though as it's quite a process, I added about 2cm of soil going to 4-5 at the back, and then covered all of that with some greenhouse shade netting to prevent it separating into the water. I capped it with gravel and then planted into the gravel. The roots then can grow through the netting but it doesn't cloud the water or get mixed up when cleaning the gravel. I also find gravel to be more attractive in the long run (or perhaps just the lazy option) compared to sand which shows up all the dirt. 
 
There's clearly some very good feedback on here already but just giving another option

 

[Huntress]

Thanks. I really don't want to remove all my water and have to restart what I worked so hard to achieve with the water quality.  Going to take out half and pour with a cup. The sand has been soaking for a few days and some are still floating but vary little. Plus the water in the bucket is crystal clear now. Wasn't really dirty to begin with.  I know my Corys will love the sand which I have been reading they prefer.  Hoping 1 20lbs bag will do my tank, its a bow front 26 gallon. I wanted bigger but my room won't allow any bigger than my 26 gallon. Anyway, I was wondering. I have a Penn Plex Cascade power filter and I've been reading that power filters and sand don't mix. I just purchased a years worth of filters because frankly I love this filter. I know Canister filters seem and sound better but not enough cash for one right now. Hoping I can find a solution not to destroy my power filter with any sand. It being a long bow front may help but unsure still.
 
edit:  Just read about a pre filter sponge for some filters. I am wondering if anyone has used this to stop sand from going into the filter.
Thanks again

 

[AbbeysDad]

Quite some time ago I switched to silica (pool filter) sand with all plastic decor. I did this because no matter the gravel, detritus gets down under and requires constant effort to keep clean to reduce nitrates. Not so with sand. I recently got a light that would support plants, so I removed the plastic plants, added some more sand, a couple of rocks and planted away. I did all this without removing the fish although I bet they wondered what the hey was going on!
So I think Sand is the way to go, but can't really say that silica is better than the average play sand - I just felt that once cleaned, it's more uniform and likely to allow slightly better water flow than some finer grained sands that may pack and inhibit root growth/health.

 

[Alasse]

My planted tanks are just propagating sand (for terrestrial plants) unwashed capped with washed course sand, grows plants like a dream
 

 

[Akasha72]

your tank is STUNNING Alasse ... I wish I could aquascape that good