The Best Substrate?

[colzboppo]

Hi there forum members
Just a quicky.
Whats the best substrate for a heavily planted tank?
Whats your experiences with vermiculite? ( i did quite well with it )
and what about Laterite?

ta
Colin

[medge00]

no experiences with vermiculite, no ideas what that is, no experience with laterite... but...

I've tried shulz aquatic soil, flora base, gravel (hey, i was new) and eco complete.

Eco complete is hands down the best. Little clouding, stays put, plants love it, great color.

flora base is ok, but breaks down into a fine mud. plants seam to like it, price is decent, but if ever you want to replant, its a mud storm all over again.

shulz will work if you need it to, but its pretty light and doesn't stay down. root tabs are a must with this one.

[sawallace]

Many will tell you ADA substrates are top of the line. Personally I won't pay that much for something that isn't all that important, [acronym:95d5aed5dd="In my opinion"]IMO[/acronym:95d5aed5dd]. You can grow plants successfully in most commercially available substrates, even plain old gravel can be used with additives. I don't have experience with vermiculite or Laterite, but i'm sure they will both work. [acronym:95d5aed5dd="For what its worth"]FWIW[/acronym:95d5aed5dd] I use Eco-Complete and I am happy with it.

[aquazen]

I use eco complete as well. Love the stuff.

I just bought a 15 pound bag of flourite red (made by seachem) this past weekend. Brought it home, and washed it in a 5 gallon bucket about ohh 15 times. (it looks like MUD when washing it lol). After washing it, i dumped it in my 10 gallon tank. If you are going with a "natural" looking substrate, i'd definitely recommend this. It looks like small chopped up bits of rock that are red, grey, and brown. I thought it was ALL red when in the bag, but it actually turned out real nice and i'm starting to like it. You water will be cloudy for 1-2 days, but this is normal, everything will settle down eventually. This substrate is real easy for planting as the rocks are real small sized, and holds the plants down real nice. The flourite is actually rocks that are made from clay and whatnot that holds nutrients in them like iron, etc.

[Quake2player]

I was sold on Eco Complete from doing all the readings here and I didn't want to go through all the "rinsing" with the other substrates... problem is, I couldn't find any [acronym:06235fc8c5="Local Fish Store"]LFS[/acronym:06235fc8c5] that carry Eco Complete and it's too expensive to pay for shipping it ordering it online. I ended up buying 2 bags of fluorite from one [acronym:06235fc8c5="Local Fish Store"]LFS[/acronym:06235fc8c5], and surprisingly found 1 bag at the local Petsmart. Petsmart's website didn't even list they had fluorite.
Rinsing 15 times per bag is no exaggeration... my muscles ache from doin 3 bags.

If I could've gotten my hands on Eco Complete this weekend, I would've preferred it.

The reason why the water gets cloudy and makes the water turn real brown is because there are VERY VERY small particles in the bag (finer than sand) that likes to stick to the bottom of the bucket. Don't let this discourage you from buying it though. Do some research on it. I was able to buy mine at a [acronym:ed70ef4aba="Local Fish Store"]lfs[/acronym:ed70ef4aba] for 10.99. It wasn't in the store, but I asked him if he had any and he went to the back of the store and brought out a box of it that had 4 bags in it. Like quake said, his petsmart had some in stock. I went to a petsmart in Ohio and they had some bags of it in stock as well. It all depends on if you want to pay the crazy shipping costs or not. If I had to choose between paying shipping for eco complete or buying flourite locally, I think i'd choose to buy the flourite.

[JohnPaul]

I just put in eco-complete this weekend and love the look. I was really wanting a black substrate, and I like the fact eco-complete is sorta "in between" in terms of grain size between sand and small gravel, with a fair amount of variety.

The fact you don't have to rinse it (in fact, shouldn't rinse it) was an extra perk.

The negative? The only [acronym:a4d46c4a82="Local Fish Store"]lfs[/acronym:a4d46c4a82] near me sells it for $19.99 a bag but has been out for over 2 weeks and didn't even know when they would be getting more--couldn't give me a firm date of any sort. So after a LOT of calling around, found another place 45 minutes away, got there, and discovered it was $29.99 a bag there.

But impatience won over; since I only needed 2 bags (plenty for a 29 [acronym:a4d46c4a82="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:a4d46c4a82] standard setup), it ended up costing me $20 more and in the big scheme of things for the total costs for an aquarium, I decided the extar $20 was worth being able to do this now and not wait for perhaps weeks on end.

[dr_girlfriend]

I'm using flourite right now and I'm pretty happy with it. It looks pretty natural, and holds most of my plants real good. My crypts seems to love it so far. And you don't have to rinse it. You just place the bag in your tank, cut it open and slowly pour it out. Then fill it enough to cover the flourite and gently plant. And SLOWLY fill the tank with a plate at the bottom.My tank was a little dusty for about 6 hours, but cleared right up. It was a little expensive, $25 for a 20 lb bag at my [acronym:ed14303641="Local Fish Store"]lfs[/acronym:ed14303641] (Maybe I got ripped).

[gopi]

Has anyone tried Garnet sand ? It is beautiful,heavy(doesnt stir up and cloud the water), not harmful to bottom sifters and snails and my plants love it-putting out roots and growing real well.This material is commonly used in the sand blasting business.I have it in my tank for about 6 months now and am very pleased.