New Substrate

[PheonixKingZ]

I have no experience with that specific substrate, so I can’t give you any advice.

 

[Byron]

So blasting sand and this to keep it from starting over cycling? I just want to make sure my plants will be able to grow in the blasting sand. https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petco..._R6v51eJ4PAtxJyF_KEPTOCoA2m-GbgJmeQAtDlot4mDA

Some of what I detailed in my previous post #12 may have been missed...plants will grow perfectly well in any substrate that is not composed of grains that are too large; these can affect plant roots. But any substrate material that is composed of grains the size of sand is excellent for plants. Plants are not the key issue here, the fish are what matter.

You mention you have cories, so that limits your substrate options to inert sand that is not rough. I have not seen the linked substrate, so I've no idea if it is or is not suitable. Personally, from having used some of these myself, and researched others, I would forget about any of the "plant" substrates. Flourite was mentioned and it is quite sharp, my cories lost their barbels and one a third of its lower jaw within a few days in a tank with Flourite; I moved them to another with Quikrete Play Sand and they healed and I still have them, some 8 years after that trauma.

Most industrial sands are rough, and for the very reason that they are intended to bind or disintegrate. While they would work with plants, again it is the fish that are the issue; substrate filter feeders like cories need to take up a mouthful of substrate, filter out the food, and expel the substrate through their gills. The sand over which all species of cory live in their habitats is very well-worn river sand, made very smooth by the tumbling action of the water over thousand of years; there are some habitats with mixed substrate materials, but this type of sand is always part of the mix. The only industrial sand that comes close to this is play sand, depending upon the manufacturer. I went into this with Quikrete a few years ago, and their Play sand is refined the longest of all industrial sands they produce and is therefore the least rough. The individual I discussed this with pointed out that they know kids will put sand in their mouths, may even swallow it, get it in their eyes and ears, so it is processed to be the smoothest sand they produce. I have used it for 9 years now, and have never had any fish (or plant) issue I could even remotely attribute to this substrate.