Substrate For Planted Tank?

[Mr.Tan]

Hello,

I recently decided to get back in to having a planted tank after my reef tank crashed from a snow storm, and need to decide on what the best substrate to use is. I have been looking around searching and viewing pictures, but it doesnt really give me the answers I am looking for.

What is everyone using for there planted tanks? I used to keep small pea-sized stones/gravel in the tank as substrate back in the day when I had a planted tank, however I am not sure if it is exactly the best for what I am looking to achieve out of my tank. I am trying to go for a very natural looking habitat. Almost like i took a chunk of a river/earth (dont know how to explain that best ) and placed it in my 29g tank. I do plan to have plants that grow overtop of the substrate almost like grass, but I do not want ALL of it to be covered, still want some substrate to show through...


I dont know if sandy substrate will work? i know from my reef tank I had to deal with things like cyano bacteria and diatoms that covered the sand beds and made it look awfully ugly, do people deal with this in freshwater tanks?


thanks for the help!

 

[minnnt]

Alot of people here tend to use planted substrates, but i just use sand and my plants do very well indeed. I have gravel in a couple of tanks, but it is easier for plants to grow in sand and is also easier for YOU to plant in sand.

Sorry to hear about the reef tank.

Also, welcome to the forum.

 

[StandbySetting]

I say this to everyone but keep it simple and just use plain clay cat litter, you can't beat it, 1cm of cat litter capped with 4-5cm of sand/gravel works a treat, clay has a high cation exchange capacity so readily accepts negatively charged ions essential to plant growth, you could always dose the water column with fertilisers if you wished, but again this all depends on lighting. The current lighting if it was for a reef set up will probably be unsuitable or too powerful so that's another thing to consider.

 

[Mr.Tan]

Alot of people here tend to use planted substrates, but i just use sand and my plants do very well indeed. I have gravel in a couple of tanks, but it is easier for plants to grow in sand and is also easier for YOU to plant in sand.

Sorry to hear about the reef tank.

Also, welcome to the forum.

Cool, i wasent sure how well sand works in planted tanks. I'm not re-using the sand from my SW tank, going to buy new stuff... my biggest fear is cleaning the sand though. Major pain and constant work in my reef tank, do FW sand tanks suffer from things like cyano bacteria that make the sand look ugly? thats the only reason i want to stick with gravel substrate... or could i do sand on the bottom in a thin layer and then gravel on top?

when you say planted substrates, you mean using plants to grow over the sand? or do they use gravel? im so confused!! haha

and thanks..im bummed about the reef tank, but it was getting SOOO expensive

I say this to everyone but keep it simple and just use plain clay cat litter, you can't beat it, 1cm of cat litter capped with 4-5cm of sand/gravel works a treat, clay has a high cation exchange capacity so readily accepts negatively charged ions essential to plant growth, you could always dose the water column with fertilisers if you wished, but again this all depends on lighting. The current lighting if it was for a reef set up will probably be unsuitable or too powerful so that's another thing to consider.

Clay cat litter? never heard of it before haha... I'll have to look for it at my pet store. If this works well i will look into using it for sure as a base. I really dont want to use fertilizers if i dont have to, i mean unless its safe against fish since I plan to stock fish of course... As for lighting, I am def not using whats on the tank now, will be WAY to strong for a FW tank. I have my old hood from when it was FW i considered using with a single t5 bulb, however i have a double t5 when my reef tank just started when it was a fish only with live rock, its 2 t5 (one actinic and 1 day light) would this stil be too strong?

my biggest issue right now is deciding between sand or gravel, just dont want a hassle of keeping sand clean unless its not bad in FW tanks


thanks for the help!

 

[Primous]

Hi Mr Tan and welcome to the forum. When It comes to substrates it really depends on what you're aim to achieve with your planted tank as there are a few to chose from.

 

[minnnt]

Planted substrates are substrates that are packed full of nutrients. ADA, JBL etc all make them and are very good... BUT not necessary. Jack's comment regarding cat litter is true... can work just as well and because it is clay, it soaks up nutrients like a sponge. You will need to get the correct stuff though!

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Cat litter is good but then so are a lot of others such as Florabase and ADA but I wouldn't suggest sand as when pruning and cleaning unless the plants have rooted deeply if you catch one you could pull it put very easily and if it's one of the carpetting plants you'll probably pull out the lot lol.

 

[Mr.Tan]

Hi Mr Tan and welcome to the forum. When It comes to substrates it really depends on what you're aim to achieve with your planted tank as there are a few to chose from.

im looking to get a very natural feeling, nothin that looks fake..i want i to look like i took a piece of a river/creek and placed it directly into my tank..of course looking clean though and not dirty lol

my previous FW planted tank has pea-sized gravel that was a light brown color.

Planted substrates are substrates that are packed full of nutrients. ADA, JBL etc all make them and are very good... BUT not necessary. Jack's comment regarding cat litter is true... can work just as well and because it is clay, it soaks up nutrients like a sponge. You will need to get the correct stuff though!

word, i wasent sure what you meant.. That cat litter thing sounds good, just not sure what kind to get! i have a pet store about 5 minutes from my house so i might run down and look around if I can get a good idea of what i exactly need... Also, as for a natural feeling of sand, I see a lot of people use dark (black?) sand..is this better then light colored?

Cat litter is good but then so are a lot of others such as Florabase and ADA but I wouldn't suggest sand as when pruning and cleaning unless the plants have rooted deeply if you catch one you could pull it put very easily and if it's one of the carpetting plants you'll probably pull out the lot lol.

lol yeah i dont want to pull stuff out! What is this florabase or ADA? is it just a type of substrate? sorry, still new to all this with FW, i never went in depth with them..

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Google them mate I use Florabase substrate, very good and come in nice sizes, if you buy the smaller bags the size is finer for putting round rocks and wood for amore natural feel.

 

[minnnt]

If your sand is 2" deep then there shouldn't be any issues of pulling out plants.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

If they haven't rooted there will be, think about it, anything with roots needs them trimmed before planting and they'll take a little while to root down to the cat litter if used underneath so something like hairgrass or hc if caught with scissors would pull straight out, HC can uproot itself if it can't root well, a friend of mine woke up one morning and found his carpet floating lol. Sorry I just think good rooting is very important if you plan on keeping a scape for a while unless you change your scape once a month like Ianho lol.

 

[ian]

Oi lol!

have a look at this as well regarding planting...

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Lol I viewed this a while back before planted one of mine, was expecting to see a finished scape at the end .



Monthly scaping Ian, true I do believe lol, since I set up Cuban Delight in August how many scapes have you had?



Lol I think the answer might suprise even you mate

 

[minnnt]

The plants in my tank do not get pulled out when doing maintenance... And they're in 2" of sand...

 

[ian]

Monthly scaping Ian, true I do believe lol, since I set up Cuban Delight in August how many scapes have you had?

I have had 2 and still on the second. This ones still got growth potential, so it will be a few months yet until this one comes down. So not really monthly scaping is it lol.