Lava Rock + Sand

[louishorton]

setting up a second tank, 146uk gallons.
im wanting to stock it with the normal community tropical fish, nothing special or too expensive. but iv been given a £20 bag of lava rock, quite a few rocks in it, but one person has said lava rock wont go in with the regular tropical fish only things like cichlids, and another have said it will be fine.

also i wanted gravel, but someone else has said sand is better, but id like a planted aquarium and i know myself rooted plants dont go well in sand.

someone go deep into lava rock and sand for me

currently have a 50gallon already set up with plecs, dwarf gourami's, breeding pair gourami.. large shoal of neon tetras.. would be looking at getting similar for my new tank.

 

[SikkAquariums]

I haven't heard much on lava rock not working out in regular tropical. Most petstores around here sell forms of lava rock for the tanks. As for the rooting of the plants, I myself have not run into any issues with sand as substrate for plants to grow. And either I add microblift formulated bacteria which is good for everything in the tank, or tetra flourapride seemed to work really well with proper lighting, as long as none of the fish will eat/dig them up. Hope some of this helps.

 

[Sammyb]

Ive had lava rock in my tropical tank for a long time and its been fine, looks great