Plants

[Underwurlde]

Sorry, you beat my last post, let me get my thinking cap on & I'll get back to you. See, cheap as chips for a lot of 'stuff'

Worm manure not that important, ignore that. Yes, Mulm from filter, get back to you on that too.

Will you be using sand then or can you find some fine gravel? Most LFS have some. 2-3mm sized stuff is the biz...

Andy

 

[puppyjess123]

Im just going to get my dad to buy the substrate lol. If not its my brithday kinda soon, I really want sand and not gravel as I just don't like the look of gravel but heres my idea, I would be planting around the 2 bits of bogwood I have and I could sprinkle my old natural coloured gravel around it, and sand everywhere else.

 

[Underwurlde]

OK, cool.

Sand sand sand.... Adding a bit of gravel here & there isn't really the idea... If you want an el natural type cheapo-but-plants-love-it kind of setup then the philosophy I'd push you into thinking is to go away from what is initially athetically pleasing you and go towards what the plants NEED. i.e. don't make it more complicated. With any luck, at the end of the day, you'll have so many plants in there you won't see the bottom anyway..!

Just think of it like this. Cows produce manure, this feeds the fields, grows the corn & grass. If there was a layer of sand in the way, the 'goodness' in the poo wouldn't get to where it was needed, i.e. to the roots of the plants.

Fine gravel holds down the messy substrate & thus your tank won't be an utter mess of soil, but at the same time it is porus and will allow poo-particles (LOL) to work down through the cap to the 'live' substrate below and thus feed the roots and hence the plants. Nice & simple.

The finer gravels do look nice, I'm not talking the horrible large small pebbly stuff here. It is almost like sand.. have you ever been to a beach where the 'sand' is very large & grainy, that is what I am talking about.

Andy

PS, I'll shut up about gravel now. Promise.