Some questions for you pros

[PhunFishGuy]

Whenever I look at professionaly made planted aquaria online, i see that they use some sort of white, andy substrate. Is it sand? If so what kind, and if you know, who makes it? Also, I am curious about this Phos-X media made by Hagen. Would that be helpful in a planted tank?

-Thanks

 

[superjalami30]

As for the substrate you speak of, I have no idea.
I use flourite in mine, I've seen others with Onyx or eco complete.
As for the Phos-X......No, its not really good in a planted tank.
Well that depends really.
If your wanting to get into growing lush beautiful plants then you'll need to add trace elements, C02, ferts, and Nitrates to name a few.
Phos-X will remove phosphates yes, but it will also remove Nitrates.
So, it comes down to how far you want to go when it comes to growing your plants.
To be honest you can grow a variety of plants without all of the above and using the phos-x, but they'll be smaller, low light types that are easy to grow.

Heres a link I'm sure will guide you in the right direction you want to go:

http/www.aquahobby.com/e_articles.php

scroll down the page and read the articles, I found them imformative myself.

 

[zig]

I would say that 80 to 90 % of planted aquaria use either Seachem flourite or Eco complete as the substrate, there are lots of others but i would say those two are by far the most popular and neither looks like conventional light sand, sand on its own is a poor substrate to use for a planted tank, you can use sand but its generally either mixed or layered with a substrate specificially for planted tanks.