Plant Substrate

[mollymom]

Hi All,

(1. What is the best soil/plant substrate to start out my medium/heavily planted tank? This will be my first real planted tank, not sure what to buy... I am thinking about Eco- Complete, but maybe Miracle Grow Organic Potting Soil??
I started out wrong, and am going to completely restart. (Drain, and etc.)

(2. I have two mollies as of right now, would they survive in a small (1 1/2 gal) tank within the process? I would not be too content on surrendering them...

Added Info:
I have off the chart hard water and a pH of 8.2 which may raise to 8.4 in the summer. The tank is a 50 gallon corner hex tank.

Thanks for any advice!!

 

[Mebbid]

1 - Substrate choice depends on what you are going to have for light. A medium light tank will work just fine with plain sand. A high light tank will be fine as well but a heavily enriched substrate would help. Personally, if I were to choose again I would go with the organic soil with an eco complete cap.

You should also look at a carbon source and fertilization depending on what light you are going to have over the tank.

2 - Just keep the mollies in a 5g bucket while you are doing the switch.

 

[mollymom]

(1. I have a 17 watt T-5 (which the tank came with) plus two LED marineland 17 inch strips that are each 6500K ...I would say I have medium light. That is the only thing that fits on the glass slot on my hood.

(2. I have a canister filter, which I put Chem-Zorb carbon filter media. Not sure what you mean by 'carbon source'. And, I know nothing about fertilization...If it is absolutely necessary, I will definitely look into it.

Thanks

 

[agrasyuk]

he said a source of carbon. plants "consume" CO2, fish "exhaling" is one of the sources. if you intend to have heavy/medium planted tank you probably will need to supplement. one way is liquid carbon, such as flourish excel and since you never did plants before that's probably what you going to start with. same on fertilization, can be liquid , but if you going for heavy usage dry ferts become much more practical.

but it all depends on what plants you want. i'm runnig a well planted 10Gallon at work with all "easy plants": Anubias, Amazon sword, Ludwigia and even some stargrass. so far i used total of 5 root tabs or so for the swords , no other fertilization whatsoever aside of what one gourami and one otto make, and no carbon either. and plants are growing somehow )

back to your question on substrate, sand will do fine (my 10 gal at work is black sand) or you can do fluorite - that substrate i have in my overgrowing with plants 55 gallon at home and it is just fine. rest of products i never had any experience, but eco-complete gets recommended a lot here. if price is doable can't go wrong with that.

 

[Mebbid]

I hate to break it to you but with those lights you are more likely low light. Are the marineland lights the single or double bright? Also, how deep is your tank?

 

[mollymom]

he said a source of carbon. plants "consume" CO2, fish "exhaling" is one of the sources.

Okay thanks for clearing that up for me.

I will use flourish excel.

(1. My tank is 23 in. high. Because it's so deep, I've been wondering about how much light I need.

(2.They are single. I could fit one more strip on the hood if necessary.

(3. How many inches high do you need the substrate for a planted tank? If it was Eco-Complete how many bags/lbs

 

[agrasyuk]

Never used but I read that singlebright is poorly suited for plants. But then again I'm running my 10 gallos on stock topfin hood with whooping 6Led elements total and things survive. when mebbid said "low light" doesn't really mean "to low", not demanding plants will live. But given your depth I think you could use an upgrade to something like us current plus or finnex fugeray planted.

If you want to grow anubias you could use just enough to anchor the roots. Root feeding plants will need 2" inches or so.

 

[agrasyuk]

plants need light+CO2+nutrients in specific proportion. So you can't upgrade the light and leave the other components out. you can't pour excel and not provide light for plant to photosynthese that carbon. Light + carbon but insufficient nutrients will lead to growth deficiencies. Overfertilze beyound what your plant consumes and unsighty organisms develop to consume all those nutrients and so on.

So I would suggest starting slow with less demanding plants. As I said my lowest tech 10 gallon running good with just few roottabs for months now.


Btw, check with mebbid, he sold me few awesome stater plant packages. perhaps he had something to trim for you

 

[Plantaholic]

The Marineland lights the OP has don't sit on top of the tanks like the single/double bright lights. They are under the lip inside the tank and depending on the fill level of water can be fully submerged(you'll get some algae growth on the light cover and clips). I tried one on my 10 gallon with low light plants and get incredible growth! There isn't much info. on PAR levels available for them unfortunatley, so never tried any medium or high light plants in there(they go in the 46 gal. with a BML fixture...), but next time I trim the 46 gallon I'm going to transplant a few plants to see what happens...

 

[mollymom]

Okay thank you so much for the light fixture suggestions. The US current plus, I really like. I just went and measured the glass space and it would fit perfect! I think I may be buying that.

As for the substrate, that's what I was thinking, would you recommend putting more like 2 1/2- 3 inches in the back? Or does it not matter. I am planning on having a variety of tall/large plants, because of how tall my tank is.

Thanks!

 

[agrasyuk]

In that case a glass top may be useful (not to expencive for this size of tank.) Will allow to use any light and is going to look better to.

Added: yep, arranging substrate somewhat sloped towards the front is done quite often.

 

[mollymom]

Plantaholic:
Thanks for your input
I actually don't put my strips inside the tank, I put them on top... Thats how they fit best on my tank.

 

[mollymom]

So I would suggest starting slow with less demanding plants. As I said my lowest tech 10 gallon running good with just few roottabs for months now.
/QUOTE]

Most the plants I want to get are "easy", because of my water parameters, most of them are hardy, low/medium light plants.

Not sure about a glass top, both of those light fixtures would fit fine.

I will definitely get root tabs when I plant.