Seachem Flourite Substrate

[Spiceweasel69]

Hi

Im looking to go heavily planted in my 2 metre tank and would like some advice on substrates.

I have been looking at the layered substrated where a layer (2in)is laid then your normal gravel on top. Whilst i can see the advantage of this, doesnt the gravel become mixed in over time and end up looking a bit naff? For this reason i am looking at going 100% with seachem flourite gravel. Has anyone used it and can comment on it? Any problems with it?


Thanks

 

[Evad]

Hi

Im looking to go heavily planted in my 2 metre tank and would like some advice on substrates.

I have been looking at the layered substrated where a layer (2in)is laid then your normal gravel on top. Whilst i can see the advantage of this, doesnt the gravel become mixed in over time and end up looking a bit naff? For this reason i am looking at going 100% with seachem flourite gravel. Has anyone used it and can comment on it? Any problems with it?


Thanks

I had a 180gal planted tank with 4" of flourite in it. Nothing else in the substrate. It was absolutely the best planted tank I have ever had and right now I regret trying other substrates (like eco complete) which I have in my tank today. I should have stuck with the flourite.

A couple of things.

1) Rinse the living daylights out of it before you put it in the tank - otherwise you will have a cloudy mess for a very long time. Its a royal pain to do but I highly reccomend doing it. I used a 5-gal bucket and dumped in a bag of flourite and overflowed the bucket outside while swirling it around with my arm. You will get messy. Its worth it

2) The look of flourite isn't all that great. I wish it was darker. but once your entire substrate is covered in plants it doesn't really matter

3) It's almost light enough to be vacummed up. So you will have to go delicate on the vaccuming.


Hope that helps

 

[aaronnorth]

Flourite is very small granules, so it tends to stick at the bottom. The problem starts when you add a small grained layer of substrate, on a larger grained size.

smaller grains fall to the bottom.

 

[Spiceweasel69]

How about having loaches or plecs with it. It looks sharp, like an igneous gravel. Would it do fish any damage. I am looking for a well balanced community tank.

 

[Evad]

How about having loaches or plecs with it. It looks sharp, like an igneous gravel. Would it do fish any damage. I am looking for a well balanced community tank.

I had tree schools of cories, clown loaches and plecs and never had an issue. Again, after about 4 months my entire bed was pretty much covered with growth but even before then I didn't see any problems with my bottom feeders.