New aquarium! Would like your expertise/advice!

[David]

Is it just me, or did anyone else hear that sand as a substrate make for poorer plant growth, as it restricts the roots of the plants? I don't know for sure, but my LFS told me this.

 

[cation]

It can, but you can allieviate this by stirring up the sand with a chopstick every so often.

 

[FishDan]

I don't know. Sand and mud is what many plants grow in in "the wild". So I think it can't be that bad. I know a few people with thriving planted tanks with a sand substrate. They don't do anything overly special with the substrate. And most have wonderful looking plants. A few have MTS other do not, and I can't see a difference. Maybe it also depends on the type of sand used? I'd think it wouldn't matter. Most aquarium "standard" gravel is not natural, while sand is far closer to what nature provides. I changed over to sand with the intention of eventually getting plants because of this. If I'm wrong, I can at least blame the sand for killing all my plants.

\Dan

 

[David]

Yes I'm thinking of changing to sand in the near future. Personally I think it looks better. However the woman at my LFS recommended gravel, so that is what I started with. I kind of regret it now...

 

[Danno]

Actually what i foundn out was if you made it a tetra tank then you could have tons of em' in there. Its really pretty when you have like 50 tetras in a tank al together.

 

[Paul_MTS]

Oh urm I don't know about the other kinds of goldfish, I was just passing on the info from the pinned topic in the coldwater section, have a read of that it might clear some bits up that I wasn't sure on!!

I was going for sand as i wasn't having a UGF anymore but my LFS dude talked me out of it and kind of glad, he said that it's alot harder to clean and shows up any mess very easily, so I went with this really fine gravel/course sand, I really like it!!

I have my tank all planted up now aswell, have a ook at my tank in the members picture section!!