65 gal re-do, substrate?

[zach_1_6]

i have a 65 gal, which i sort of "rushed" and didn't do things the way i like them and now im stuck with an ugly layout but with all my nice fish. so im getting off my butt finally and am going to do somthing about it by completelly re-doing the tank. its going to be planted, im going to have high lighting and most likely co2. what is the best substrate for plants? i have flourite in my 10 gal and the plants are doing very well but its a little on the expensive side, what other substrate options are there? could i use sand or a mix between the 2?

 

[BigJim]

How serious about the plants are you and how dirty are you willing to get? Flourite and EcoComplete are convenient, but they're expensive. I've seen people use mineralized top soil, but that's messy to make. Plain sand works, but you have to add fertilizer tabs for the root feeders. I've also seen people use Turface (ball field dirt) with great results. I found a black blasting compound called Black Blast that has a similar makeup to aquariumplants.com's house substrate. The plants seem to be growing ok, but I need to add some better light and CO2 before I decide on its value as a planted substrate.

 

[zach_1_6]

i will probably use the flourite. as for how serious am i about plants. im not to serious about them, but i do want to (at some time ) have a fully planted tank with one or two pieces of driftwood in it. the only thing stopping me now is money, lights and co2 arent the cheapest things. does turface have any nutritional value? ive read that it slowly releases nutrients, and if i add root tabs it will jump start that process.

 

[Faile]

Since Turface was designed for a ball field and not an aquarium, it doesn't have any nutrients stored to begin with. It will pick up nutrients from the mulm, root tabs, and nutrients in the water column. It's size and overall appearance is very similar to Flourite and at about $10 for 50lbs it's extremely inexpensive.

I really only had two things I didn't like about it. It's rather light weight, so it doesn't hold onto plants as well at first. The size of particles is large enough that smaller rooted plants (foreground) don't tend to root as well in it as some of the finer grained substrates.

 

[BigJim]

Faile pretty much summed up Turface. It's supposed to have good ion exchange like Flourite, but it's easily disturbed.

 

[zach_1_6]

allright, well when i get around to doing this tank il make a build thread and do some research to find the best stuff. thanks