substrate recommendation

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Potluck

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Oct 29, 2015
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So I read an in depth article of how to pick substrate, I'm totally confused lol, here's the thing... I don't want to go fully planted in abundance like I see most of the members on here do as I cannot afford to do a co2 system and I don't know anything about it and I know you can overdose and kill your fish.

I do not want to go sand, dirt or compost and in this article he states that to compact of substrate can cause toxicity that will kill your fish and to thick trap food and waste, so I'm looking for a good smooth gravel type not jagged as I do have a few fish it will irritate.

I want a substrate where I can grow root feeders like swords, vals not in abundance just light cover but grow tall but I don't know if this can be achieved in gravel even if it's thin pebble.

I won't have to worry about the gravel when it comes to anubias/fern/moss cause that will be attached to drift wood /rock but I do need a substrate that's not as big pebbled as mine that will be able to grow out swords or vals if I can go the gravel route.

Here's the post I cannot make sense if it well cause this is new to me and I have a hard time learning by reading.


Any suggestions on substrate as I am going to pick some up this weekend, also I was told I won't cycle my tank because I have dual aqua clear hob's that should have enough BB to sustain the bacteria while the substrate colonizes but I'm not to sure about that as well any opinion on that would be great.

https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?ur.../&share_tid=8217&share_fid=12294&share_type=t

The Soil Substrate Or Dirted Planted Tank - a How to Guide...
 
Also it might help get these down, I still can't read it though looks around 30-40 20161202_095920_001.jpg20161202_100251.jpg20161202_100447.jpg
 
I had swords in a 20H setup. I guess you could call it low-tech. I had co2 booster, fluorescent lighting, floramax substrate, and no ferts. My Amazon sword has grown about 5 or 6 new stems in about 4 months. I have heard that they can be grown in regular gravel if enough space is given for its roots to expand and anchor down. They're a lot more hardy than people give them credit for and they're very adaptive to their environment. A common problem is that when they're first added to a new tank, some of the more mature leaves tend to die off fairly quickly. This leads to people tossing them out, instead of letting the plant establish itself in the tank. To answer your question, yes swords can grow in regular smooth gravel if you give depth, space, and light. Hopefully I told you something productive!

As for water questions and BB colonization, I'll leave that up to somebody else :) Good Luck, Rick.
 
For my 29g I use sand (National Geographic brand) for my substrate, Fluval Aquasky LED, and dose Flourish excel every 2-3 days, with Flourish and Flourish Iron on water change day (all standard dose). Plants include an ocelot sword, cryptocoryne retro, a bunch of wisteria, and a few stems of scarlet temple from a PetSmart tube that have really taken off. Everything has built pretty extensive root structures in the sand; I had to slightly reposition my sword last week and it was shifting sand 6 inches away when I tugged on it!
 
Haha that's what happened with my amazon sword. It was hard to pull out so I left it be
 
I use Thrive all-in-one 1x weekly on my low light tank. After water change.

I use DIY Root Tabs

I use Excel liquid carbon
( I will be switching to Glut as it's cheaper).

What size tank ? Shorter tanks are easier to grow plants under cheap lights IME.

My basic 10gIMG_1480760989.213248.jpg
Old pic

My 55g
No injected CO2 yet
IMG_1480761033.939528.jpgIMG_1480761063.942806.jpgIMG_1480761093.434715.jpg
 
I use Thrive all-in-one 1x weekly on my low light tank. After water change.

I use DIY Root Tabs

I use Excel liquid carbon
( I will be switching to Glut as it's cheaper).

What size tank ? Shorter tanks are easier to grow plants under cheap lights IME.

My basic 10gView attachment 291525
Old pic

My 55g
No injected CO2 yet
View attachment 291526View attachment 291527View attachment 291529
It's a 55 gallon, I don't know if my light is low it's not like a wave point or finnex it is an elive 48" with 16 pods 8 plant, 4 lunar, 2 color enhancing and 2 infra red

What's really strange is last night I went full dark no Lunars, turned the light on today and all my plant leafs were curled upwards towards the light like all plants do (grow towards the light source) and I noticed that there was algae on my Texas Holey rock where there was none before I turned the light Off.
 
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