Substrate alternative
- Thread starter yonahfeld
- Start date
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fish wrangler
Aquarium Advice Addict
It depends on the plants. What plants do you have in mind?
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fish wrangler
Aquarium Advice Addict
If they are root feeders like water wisteria then you would have to put root tabs under the plants every couple of months. If you went with leaf feeders like java fern or anubias the substrate isn't really important.
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Mattfinn
Aquarium Advice Addict
It's possible yeah most special substrates don't contain nutrients forever and eventually you have does ferts.
You can easily do black sand and plants. If you stick to simpler plants you're going to have more success as they have less nutrient requirements. I have two planted tanks and I only provide root tabs for them. With a diy c02 system rigged in one. I get growth and success from both.
Simple plants to start with are: anubias, Java fern, Java moss (all don't require any really fertilizing at all and are low light. Tie these plants to ornaments, rocks and driftwood. Water wisteria, hygro c. Crypts, penny wort, elodea, hornwort are all plants that can be buried in the substrate and will require root tabs. Penny wort, elodea, hornwort and wisteria can all be left floating in your tank.
Also root tabs although to buy commercially made can be a bit expensive depending on the size of the tank, can be made cheaply using osmocote plus and gel caps.
Hope this helps
You can easily do black sand and plants. If you stick to simpler plants you're going to have more success as they have less nutrient requirements. I have two planted tanks and I only provide root tabs for them. With a diy c02 system rigged in one. I get growth and success from both.
Simple plants to start with are: anubias, Java fern, Java moss (all don't require any really fertilizing at all and are low light. Tie these plants to ornaments, rocks and driftwood. Water wisteria, hygro c. Crypts, penny wort, elodea, hornwort are all plants that can be buried in the substrate and will require root tabs. Penny wort, elodea, hornwort and wisteria can all be left floating in your tank.
Also root tabs although to buy commercially made can be a bit expensive depending on the size of the tank, can be made cheaply using osmocote plus and gel caps.
Hope this helps
ppo8820
Aquarium Advice Freak
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2014
- Messages
- 393
Get the floramax substrate in "Midnight". Its basically black and designed for plants. I just converted my tank to this as I wanted black and something to benefit my plants. It looks gorgeous and black, just like I wanted. Bonus is the nutrients for the plants.
Mebbid
Aquarium Advice Addict
I ran a 55g with black beauty blasting sand for close to a year. It was a hugely successful tank.
Mattfinn
Aquarium Advice Addict
I use river sand that I got from my local landscape store. $2 10kg bag
JokerWx13
Aquarium Advice Freak
People also use regular plant fertilizer and then cap it with sand so the dirt doesn't end up flying everywhere
aqua_chem
Aquarium Advice Addict
The vast majority of plants don't require any special substrate. I would go so far as to say that any plant that you can buy from a store or a major online company won't require special substrate. Once you start buying more exotic species from other hobbyists, you start to get into a different story, but for the most part is contributes very little to plant success/failure.
Coursair
Aquarium Advice Addict
2 black sand tanks
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