My plants are struggling

[anewbie]

I've never had aerobic pockets of gas, if that's what you mean. Any substrate under decor will have anaerobic bacteria in it, but that's not a bad thing as they'll help break down waste that gets in the substrate.

I've had a repeatedable issues with caribsea moonshine and i believe it is because it is extremely fine (when i say repeatable i mean i ran tests in smaller aquariums after i encountered a problem in a 29 and i could reproduce it easily. I've never had an issue with hth pool fitler sand and estes stoney river and i made up a term 'breathable'.

The stuff that i produced in moonshine was quite deadly killing plants and to a degree animal life (sulfur smell). I got rid of the stuff and the issue went away. Hence crystal river is the finest substrate i recommend with the presumption anything finer that is deep in a planted aquarium is going to cause issue.

The funny thing is moonshine (or is it moonlight?) doesn't pack and i love the stuff 'cept for the gas pocket issue.

You also have to understand that there are different bacteria that produce gas pocket and some are quite harmless or the gas is quite harmless - in shallower aquarium i would get nitrogen instead of sulfur.

 

[Jinx_]

I think those anaerobic gas pockets you read about occur in very deep substrate. You'll see photos of tanks with substrate 10 cm deep or more. Less than that, under 7 cm or less, doesn't usually have a problem.

You probably won't remember Byron, a very knowledgable member who passed away before you joined. Here are some quotes from his posts to reassure you.

I'm sorry to hear about his passing, may he Rest In Peace

I'm happy to be reassured I won't have problems with gas pockets, my layer won't even be reaching 6cm.

Talking of substarte. I have found that a mixture of inert sand/gravel with Rootabs has given me better results than my tank that uses topsoil and a gravel cap. If I rescape any tank in the future, I'm going to try something new. I plan on copying MDFishtanks' substrate method of aquatic compost + coarse gravel with sand cap. After growing in, his tanks look healthy, even if there is algae. So I plan to see if this works for me also

I just am scared of the soils mixing, it's annoying

The sand I got is pretty fine, like on a beach.