Best substrate to use?

[Mrscpoulson]

Setting up a heavily planted 10g with Dwarf Grass and maybe some Java Fern or Moneywort.

My question is about the best substrate to get the dwarf grass to "carpet". I've seen conflicting things about sand suffocating the roots but also being good for them to root?

Does anyone have personal experience with successful carpeting?

I plan on using Root Tabs as well as Flourish to get the plants going in the right direction.

 

[Bert2oo1]

Setting up a heavily planted 10g with Dwarf Grass and maybe some Java Fern or Moneywort.



My question is about the best substrate to get the dwarf grass to "carpet". I've seen conflicting things about sand suffocating the roots but also being good for them to root?



Does anyone have personal experience with successful carpeting?



I plan on using Root Tabs as well as Flourish to get the plants going in the right direction.

Use Ada Amazonia light Aqua soil (get the light for no ammonia leak)

No need for root tabs with the Ada untill like 12 months down the track [emoji106] works great!

 

[Mrscpoulson]

That's awesome! Thank you for the suggestion! I'm definitely taking a look today!

 

[Bert2oo1]

That's awesome! Thank you for the suggestion! I'm definitely taking a look today!

You won't be disappointed [emoji106] make sure u get the light version though as the regular leech's a serious amount of ammonia and requires a months worth of excessive water changes to keep parameters in check. Also are you planning on adding preasurised co2?

 

[FishyFisherson]

I just did the same. We re-scaped our middle tank - 11g cube. I want to get the dwarf hairgrass to carpet before any fish go in - all the fish are parked in the 5g or the 29g. Right now I have a natural stone gravel with 4 flourish tabs. I'm adding Flourish liquid weekly, Flourish Advance daily for two weeks. And then alternating days Excel for Carbon. Then NPK twice a week and Iron twice. Following the seachem routine to see how it goes. It's been about 5 days. I had to change the water today as it started looking green. The dh tufts look happy but I'm thinking I might be starting an algae farm . I'll post the initial pic and a 2 wk pic, after something happens. I started with the tissue cultured stuff so 4 little tufts after it was broken up. We can compare notes! Cheers.

 

[Mrscpoulson]

Perfect! I look forward to seeing your results! A co-worker talked me into the Co2 booster for the tank. So I'll probably give that a try along side the tabs and a weekly flourish. I'm hoping it'll keep the plants nice and happy!

 

[Fresh2o]

I've heard good things about Brightwell Aquatics Florin Volcanit (comes in black or brown; 3 different grades). Won't leach ammonia, great for plants, won't break the bank. I have not tried it yet but probably next on the list.
I have grown dwarf baby tear (HC Cuba) on CaribSea EcoComplete and initially the results were okay but after several months the carpet started to lift up en masse. Have not grown DHG so I'm not sure how that would do in the EC.