Which Substrate?

[montyII]

Yet another question for the big planty brains out there!

Which substrate do people prefer, Seachem Flourite, Seachem Onyx Sand or CaribSea Eco-Complete?

Also they reccomend you use a depth 2", could you use less if you're putting sand over the top? Maybe 1" substrate and 1" sand?

Thanks again.

 

[mlawson]

Personally I like Eco-complete, but mainly because it's the only one out of the three I've used.

Eco-complete is a substrate best on it's own, the reason I like it is because of its dark colouration and it is not course like flourite. It is also recommended by a lot of plant Gurus, ie. Tom Barr.

Remember there are other good substrates like ADA aquasoil, Tropica substrate, Tetra complete substrate and Red Sea florabase.

With Eco-complete I would not recommend mixing it with annother substrate, although you could try having quartz, sand or normal gravel covering some Flourite I suppose.

 

[montyII]

Ta for your reply.

Well if Eco-Complete's good enough for Tom Barr, it's good enough for me!

I was thinking the sand over the top as I wanted to get some Corydoras, but I might rethink that. I can imagine the sand would eventually get all mixed up with the substrate.

Cheers,
Nick.

 

[Kevstir]

i was going to ask a similar question,

i have a juwel vision 180 , the missus wants me to move the tank, i thought this would be a good opportunity to redo the tank

i was thinking about using tropica plant substrate topped of with sand, at the moment i just have plain play sand from argos with some fertilizer sticks under the roots, would i see a big difference with the tropica substrate?? i have no c02 and have 1.7wpg.

Kev

EDIT: never mind i will soon find out lol, just got 5ltr of tropica substrate, 250ml seachem excel, 100ml potassium and and new arc pod 11w bulb for my other tank for a nice £41 delivered , good price ay? got them from http/www.aquaristic.net

 

[montyII]

i was thinking about using tropica plant substrate topped of with sand, at the moment i just have plain play sand from argos with some ferteliser sticks under the roots, would i see a big difference with the tropica substrate?? i have no c02 and have 1.7wpg.

Yeah, I'm also just using root tabs but under gravel in my 3ft, and it seems to work quite well. I'm not sure if you'd benefit from the tropica substrate, I'm assuming you would. I'm sure one of the planted gurus cananswer that.

But I did just read that if you go sand over a commercial substrate you should ony use 1cm of sand or you'll get anerobic pockets developing in the substrate.

 

[Luketendo]

I'm using Tropica Plant Substrate with Black Sand in my 60l soon.