Aquarium substrates

[Ady Bowers]

Hi,

I'm setting up a new tank and wanted to know if what I needed to add to the base. I want to use natural sand but will be planted so do i need plant substrate as a bottom layer with sand on top? If so what sort of depth do you think for each? Also if both how will that effect cleaning with say a siphon cleaner, will it not just mix them all up? Do i need both substrate and sand? Any advice will be great.

Thanks.

 

[Wills]

It depends on how planted you want the tank to be. Active substrates like aquarium soil or Amazona are great if you want to grow lots of plants but if you want an easy tank with ferns swords and crypts etc then sand would work and you can always add root tabs too.

with the soils you can bank the substrate quite deep to create depth but if you make your sand too deep it can cause some problems.

Wills