Question About Substrate

[m1lky12]

Hey, I'm venturing into the world of planted tanks dosing with DIY CO2 (fire extinguisher) once pay day comes round the corner and my upgrade, which has been sitting unused for 6 months is finally up and running! At the moment I have aquarium sand as my substrate but seeing as I'm going down the planted route I was wondering whether this would suffice or whether there's any particular substrate which would be better for plants. I've read about the eco complete stuff which provides nutrients but I would prefer sand if possible, I did think about mixing it with sand on top but I know the sand will more than likely end up falling in between and below, I also saw somewhere you can get some sort of divider to keep them separate?
 
Any help or advice would be much appreciated, thanks.

 

[mishmash]

If you put sand on top of eco complete it will work its way down and the EC will end up on top in any case.  I would avoid EC anyway, its cr4p.  Full of massive boulders despite the grain size their website states and it is sharp as anything and will scratch your tank to high hell unless you are mega careful.    If you really like sand I would consider one of the Unipac sands such as Maui (very light), Fiji (medium) or Samoa, or Tana, or some such.  If you want nutrients to be in the substrate too, then put Tropica planting substrate under the sand and use a gravel tidy (plastic greenhouse mesh is far cheaper and does the job) over the tropica.  Bear in mind if you pull up a well established plant, do it very carefully as the roots will have gone down into the mesh and you may pull the whole thing up !  But take it carefully and that will be fine.  In fact, this is exactly what I will be doing in my next scape.  I can also highly recommend ADA Aquasoil or Columbo florabase.

 

[m1lky12]

Thanks for your help, in fact just before I checked this thread again I'd just been reading how Eco Complete doesn't work! Haha, something to do with the fact that although the nutrients are present they can't be taken up effectively by the plants or something like that? And cool I'll check out the Unipac, Tropica, ADA and Columbo then, and the greenhouse mesh as well.. Though I do have a couple more questions, if I use both sand and the planting substrate how deep would each level be? Also if I used the mesh method do I plant through the mesh or just down too the mesh?

 

[Ps3Steveo]

If your investing in CO2 and ferts I'd spend a little extra and go with something like florabase, its excellent stuff.