Plant Substrate

[diesel21]

Hi there!

I will be setting up my new 300 litre tank soon and I would like to have lots of live plants for the fish and beauty purposes. Question is, I grow amazons etc in just gravel but have been reading and heard a substrate under my gravel will vastly improve the plants chances. could you guys advise the best one? I will be having fish in the tank and will be aiming at the hardy and easier plants! many thanks!!

 

[Dave Spencer]

As long as you keep the water column well fertilised, you could stick with the gravel, if you want.

Dave.

 

[tom_os]

i know alot of people on here would probably reccommend tropica plant substrate. i use it myself on 2 tanks. you would need about 10l which would be about £35

 

[Alasse]

I have a 350litre planted tank, just rescaped it last week or so

I put laterite and dino dung (local made clay&plant fert blocks), all topped with plain black gravel, its an inexpensive way of doing it, and the plants are already throwing new shoots out and looking lovely and green (or red depending on plant type)

 

[JenCliBee]

Theres plenty to choose from, im cyrrently buying eco complete for the simple reason its basically use and thats it, no capping with sand or gravel etc etc so works out for me easier

jen

 

[diesel21]

WOW lots of different responses well im planning to have black fine gravel on top of the substrate thinking eco complete could be good plus ive seen it in my LFS. Finding what your looking for can be difficult here sometimes! Thanks for your responses!

 

[Amunet]

Also if you didn't want to change gravel... you could always just use root tablets.

 

[vinylman]

Also if you didn't want to change gravel... you could always just use root tablets.

Or just buy a box of Laterite and make a hole in the gravel where the plant's going to go, drop some Laterite in, then plant and cover back up with the gravel.