What Substrate Do You Use?

[Nick16]

i havent done a test yet, its something i will have to look into. i dont have a kh or gh kit...
will buy one in the near future.

yeah, i dont want to use the ocean rock as its too common, i find it boring now. i will need 90+kgs of substrate and i cant afford to buy all coral sand, so im going to mix some in with regular play sand.

 

[Nick16]

i swear kh and gh are the same thing? so i only need to get a gh (freshwater) test kit. isnt the kh for marine use?

 

[the biffster]

i havent done a test yet, its something i will have to look into. i dont have a kh or gh kit...
will buy one in the near future.

yeah, i dont want to use the ocean rock as its too common, i find it boring now. i will need 90+kgs of substrate and i cant afford to buy all coral sand, so im going to mix some in with regular play sand.

i think you may of calculated a slight bit
wrong on how much you are going to need
my lfs sells 20kg of coral gravel for about
£20. or there abouts two bags should be enough
to do a good 2 inch covering of the bottom of your
tank i reckon

 

[Nick16]

when i planted it up, i used ecocomplete, and used 100kgs. it was 8cm at the back and 4cm at the front. so even it out and it comes to about 2 inches accross the whole tank. i supose the rocks will take up some space but i still think i will need a minimum of 80kg.

 

[the biffster]

when i planted it up, i used ecocomplete, and used 100kgs. it was 8cm at the back and 4cm at the front. so even it out and it comes to about 2 inches accross the whole tank. i supose the rocks will take up some space but i still think i will need a minimum of 80kg.

i take it your not using
plant on this one as i have
never seen plants in a malawi tank
as the get eaten straight away in only
used 60 kg in a 6x2x2 coral gravel is more
bulkier than eco compleat which is more like a
course sand /fine gravel i don't think you would
need more than 40 50 kg to cover the bottom

 

[KittyKat]

i take it your not using
plant on this one as i have
never seen plants in a malawi tank
as the get eaten straight away

He isn't.
On a side note: I have kept Anubias and Thai Onions in Malawi tanks with success for periods of 1+ years.
But the fish were well fed.

 

[Squidward]

Hi Nick

I don't think you need that much sand. I used a 25kg bag in my 240L tank and it was fine.

KH and GH are not the same.
I am not an expert on this, but my understanding is as follows:
General Hardness is the total dissolved minerals in your water.
Carbonate Hardness is the level of dissolved Calcium Carbonate in your water, and this is the important one. With few exceptions, this will be lower than the GH.
It is also directly linked to Ph. So if your ph is ok, chances are, your KH will be fine too.

So first you need to measure your ph and kh, and then take things from there.

 

[the biffster]

i take it your not using
plant on this one as i have
never seen plants in a malawi tank
as the get eaten straight away

He isn't.
On a side note: I have kept Anubias and Thai Onions in Malawi tanks with success for periods of 1+ years.
But the fish were well fed.

i to made the same mistake many moons
ago nice planted tank one day next morning
bare moon like land scape

 

[KittyKat]

Hmm, as for amounts of substrate: I have two identical tanks where one is planted with 50 or 60kg substrate (can't remember) and the other is Malawi with 15kg of same substrate.

 

[Nick16]

right, i will try to grab 20-25kgs of coral sand, and the rest play sand as its cheap.

cheers for ther advice guys. i might sneak an anubias in there.

 

[the biffster]

coral gravel looks good
as well and its more bulk

 

[Vidster]

around 7.5-8.5 for most malawi cichlids. i dont know if my water is going to be good enough on its own. i do have very hard water but the ph isnt really affected.

im not using ocean rock, but something dark and very hard, similar to slate in appearance but alot more sold. it doesnt really chip as much. i very much doubt if it has buffering properties at all, hence me needing to put something in there to help slightly.

I'm only just coming back in to this but i have read a lot over the last weeks and 7+CM of sand is a BAD idea from what i can tell. Anything over 4 or 5 CM is just going to be a breeding ground for fatal gasses. I have crushed coral in my tank and at no point does it go over 3cm. I also disturb the sand every 3 or 4 days to make sure there are no build up of harmful gasses.

 

[SlyPolak]

The gasses that build up under your gravel/sand is not at all "harmful" .... people had this discussion a while back about stirring sand and were scared about gases.... all the gas is just pockets of air... i get it in my gravel all the time and when I gravel vac. all it does is rise to the surface and "pop" like a harmless fish fart...

 

[kiriyama]

As above, as long as the substrate is stirred up regular the gasses will be released, I have eco cichlid sand in the fry tank deeper at some bits and in the main tank have aragonite coral grave, coral sand, coarse black sand/fine black gravel all mixed, no problems

 

[Nick16]

they can be very harmful indeed, gasses trapped can become dangerous and very toxic over time. thats why i question why people want to kill snails in their tanks. they do such a goood job oof turning over the substrate.

is a common miscoonception to say its just air.. there was a thread discussing the matter about a year ago, and truck highlighted some scientiific evidence. but whatever you 'search' for on here you get 1000 results no matter how specific.