Seeking Last Minute Opinions on Substrate

[Rokuzachi]

Hey guys,

I'm about to pull the trigger on the substrate for my new 120g. Ive been all over the net reading opinions and experiences about eco complete. I have the chance to get 10 bags at a reasonable price to combine with 30 lbs of black fluorite and some black fluorite sand.

Would you do it?

Or would you go with pfs and use the money (about 130$ saved) on better lights, pressurized co2 and ferts? I just really like the look of eco. I seem to have trouble getting past that. full-on fluorite is no good because the barbels on my cats get torn up, and ill never wash fluorite sand again after the last fiasco. I need a magical no-wash cheap black pf sand or something, lol.

Any opinions are appreciated

(the residents are/will be hoplo cats, perches and chocolate cichlids from my current tank)

 

[jetajockey]

If you intend to go high tech then definitely get a high cec substrate.

That said, I would likely go with turf ace or oildri which are both relatively inexpensive in 50lb bags. That'd let you have a good plant friendly substrate and still have money to get other equipment.

How does flourite tear up barbels?

 

[mfdrookie516]

Floramax is another option. It's the same stuff as eco complete, just isn't sold wet (so 20lbs goes a lot further). It's generally sold in a larger grain size than eco complete, but can be found in the smaller grain as well. Less than half the price, but same look and benefit.

 

[Rokuzachi]

I checked out the Turface on my phone and it looked pretty good. Time to do some more looking at it!

For a while I kept my 3 adult hoplos on black fluorite gravel. They love to dig into the substrate up to their eyes (not gently or slowly either, sometimes they drive in and wiggle until they're jammed into it), and it would scuff their snouts and eventually some of their whiskers were damaged to the point of breaking off. The stuff was just way too sharp. Since I switched them over to a mix of fluorite sand and the moon sand stuff, their whiskers haven't seen any damage at all.

I checked out the Floramax, but I think they've gotten wise. A 12lb bag of it is only $1 less than a 20lb bag of Eco Complete. I can't seem to find 20lb bags of Floramax any where (I take that back, Petsmart has bags of Floramax listed at half the price I was seeing before)

Thanks for the help so far, I feel like there's hope of finding a better option again, lol.

 

[Fedex3d]

Just cycled a 125g planted tank with a layer of organic soil a layer of eco complete & a layer of black moon sand. Looks great & plants have already taken root & showing growth.

 

[aqua_chem]

What are you goals for this tank? If you're aiming for planted tank excellence, you will be much better off getting a co2 kit and using sand, turface, or some other super cheap alternative, at least in my opinion. Substrate choice will actually have a relatively minor impact on the success or failure of a tank, at least compared with the dramatic impact of normal trinity of planted tanks (co2, ferts, and lights)

 

[Rokuzachi]

What are you goals for this tank? If you're aiming for planted tank excellence, you will be much better off getting a co2 kit and using sand, turface, or some other super cheap alternative, at least in my opinion. Substrate choice will actually have a relatively minor impact on the success or failure of a tank, at least compared with the dramatic impact of normal trinity of planted tanks (co2, ferts, and lights)

That's a good question. My last few tanks have been mostly tall stem plants with a few anubias/crypts and some melon swords. I'm looking to stay away from stem in this tank, and plant a good portion of the bottom with wendtii red that I've grown a bunch of over the past year while the rest of the tank will be occupied by some larger things like swords/ferns around the driftwood region. The wendtii area is supposed to be sort of the 'open plains' if you will. Low lying but plenty of coverage.

I don't want the tank to be extravagant, I'd just like to be sure that I have strong and full growth down at the substrate level (24" tall tank and I plan on 3" of substrate) which has been a problem in some of my tanks as I didn't take into account the tall nature of them when I was buying my equipment.

 

[Rokuzachi]

Bleh. Seems all the clearence-priced Floramax in my area is gone.

Are the Aquariumplants.com substrates worth looking into? At this point I'm about ready to throw in the towel and go to Leslie's for some PFS despite it not being black/gray/dark.

If this were a bedroom tank I wouldn't care about the color. But this baby is going to be smack in the middle of the biggest wall of an 11x17' foot room where all my guests will see it (and hopefully be tempted into letting me set up tanks for them too!)

 

[jetajockey]

Bleh. Seems all the clearence-priced Floramax in my area is gone.

Are the Aquariumplants.com substrates worth looking into? At this point I'm about ready to throw in the towel and go to Leslie's for some PFS despite it not being black/gray/dark.

If this were a bedroom tank I wouldn't care about the color. But this baby is going to be smack in the middle of the biggest wall of an 11x17' foot room where all my guests will see it (and hopefully be tempted into letting me set up tanks for them too!)

The aquariumplants stuff looks good, but honestly you could do the same at home by adding a mix of ferts into any fired clay substrate.

Since you are planning to get technical with this setup (i.e. co2 etc) you'll need to have ferts on hand for regular dosing, so you could add ferts to the substrate yourself or just supplement with something like EI dosing regimen.

So at the end of the day it's really up to you and what you want to spend. I totally agree with aqua_chem in that your money is best saved and spent on co2 and lights.

 

[aqua_chem]

I think there is currently a thread on plantedtank.net about that now in the substrate section.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?p=2037629

You might also poke around that subforum a bit for ideas.

 

[jetajockey]

Nice link, I haven't read about it. I was debating on soaking some of my oil-dri in a pmdd mix just to see how it'd work so this is interesting.

 

[aqua_chem]

There's a thread on oildri there right now too. As far as 'frontloading' the substrate goes, I would imagine that they would be chemically identical within a week or less. The "loading" of the ferts onto the surface of high-cec substrate probably happens pretty quick.

 

[jetajockey]

My biggest gripe with oil-dri has been that my water is already extremely soft, so I had a GH/KH issue even with the addition of dolomite to the bottom layer of soil and irregular camg(co3)2 dosing. It never caused an issue with the fish or plants but I still tested it periodically and added a few spoonfuls of dolomite powder and baking soda when the gh/kh bottomed out. After a few weeks or so it was fixed.

 

[aqua_chem]

Frontloading with extremely high GH/KH water might help that.

 

[Rokuzachi]

Thanks so much for the help guys

If I can get some Turface without driving too far I'm going to do that since most of my options have fallen through in the immediate area. Though a new option has presented itself today;

I was offered 100g (60x18x20 or something like that) with stand, glass hood and basic fixtures (which I wouldn't end up using) for less than the price of a 90g tank + stand. Brand new too! I was shocked. He also told me that a 125g would run me less than the 120g. So now I have to think this over too while I collect my substrate! A 5 or 6 foot tank might be kind of fun despite only being 18" wide, and depending on the increased savings, I could throw even more money at lighting/ferts/co2.

Edit: As far as rinsing goes, what would you guys say takes the most effort between oil dri and the turface?

 

[jetajockey]

I've not used turface (yet, i have a john deere store nearby) . Oildri has been decent, less rinsing than playsand anyway. I did a small bag last week in a 5lb bucket and spent maybe 5 min on rinsing.

Itd work even faster if you rinsed it through a screen of some sort. I separated straight mud (mineralized topsoil) from year old oil dri using a piece of screen door screen and it came clean in just a few minutes.