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Recent content by ShrimpBrothers
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Yes, always boil first. Cleans and kills anything potentially bad. Plus shrimp don't really eat live plants but decaying plants so the boiling helps in that way. I usually do spinach and keep IAL in the tank(not really a vegetable).
+1 on Amazonia. I actually have a tank with Stratum underneath Amazonia and my shrimp are doing wonderfully, plants are happy too. Akadama is another option but doesn't have the nutrients of the other two.
You can mix in some cheaper inert substrate too if you want to save some money.