Plants and Sand Substrate

[Rudy2860]

any pros and/or cons about plants with sand as substrate?

-thanks

 

[marks69]

i just set up my 55 gallon with sand, and love the look, only problem i've had so far is the sand on my hornwort.i put it in while filling the tank, and the sand wasen't washed as well as it should have been.the few plants i have in the tank so far haven't been knocked out yet, and the cory's love it.
i just used playsand, and am going to place river rocks scattered throughout the tank shortly.
gl
mark

 

[Bol]

Some possible pros:

* Can be gentler on bottom dwellers
* Can be better for some root plants than gravel.
* Can look better

Some possible cons:

* Can be messy when you first put it in
* Depending on grain size, can be too dense for some plants.
* Might lead to "dead spots" or anaerobic pockets that may produce hydrogen sulfide (I think it's sulfide -- something with sulfer, in any case), which is toxic.

 

[Rudy2860]

thanks for the replys!

I plan to make a medium planted tank with sand substrate to avoid the plant roots from not getting enough nutrients should i place some gravel in the bottom layers of the sand and toss it every now again to avoid the dead spots?

 

[thecichlidaddict]

I wouldn't worry about dead spots very much, anaerobic pockets are a bigger problem in theory then reality, but if you are then just add snails, they will do a good job of turning the substrate for you.

What you can do is add a thin layer of a flourite type substrate on the bottom and then use sand for the rest. The roots of the plants will find the nutrient rich substrate underneath.

 

[Rudy2860]

Any type of snail? Or malaysian trumpets? i heard they will dig in the sand but i have also heard they have very hard shells and can damage a puffers teeth and they should be avoided

 

[Vagingo]

Any type of snail? Or malaysian trumpets? i heard they will dig in the sand but i have also heard they have very hard shells and can damage a puffers teeth and they should be avoided

I've never kept them because I heard they eat plants and their shells are supposed to be pretty tough. I have a rather large dojo loach that'll eat small snails so I never bought MTS, but I keep four mystery snails (pomacea bridgesii) in my tank.

 

[madda]

We have recently set up using sand with plants, which are doing just fine. We rinsed our sand over 20 times before we added it, just swirling it about inbetween changing the water in a bucket. Figured it was better to go a bit overboard than have dirty sand .
At first I wondered how a plec would get on with it but he seems more than happy too.

So far plants have stayed in place (had them in for a month and a half) and we have Assassin snails that churn the sand about quite nicely.