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Would this work?

RickB

Member
Joined
4 Apr 2016
Messages
379
Location
UK
Hi everyone.

At the moment most of the substrate in my tank is plain sand but I am thinking of adding more plants and am trying to come up with a cost effective way to do it.

I am think of adding a layer of tropica soil powder over the top of the sand and then capping it with fine gravel.

Would this be ok to plant into?

I was thinking of using some tropica plant growth substrate capped with gravel but the tank will have water in so that could get very very messy...
 
I think if you wanted to do that you'd probably be best emptying the tank, in which case you might as well remove the sand as well. Otherwise you could just use root tabs or liquid ferts. What sort of plants do you want to grow?
 
Emptying the tank would probably not work due to fish, planning on adding more balansae and some hygro polysperma and some smaller crypts, would root tabs and fine gravel work that would be alot cheaper than paying alot of money for the soil powder.
 
Lots of people grow beautifull plants on plane sand.. Than you need to sufficiently fertilize the water column and or use fert tabs in the sand near the plant roots. The majority of plants don't realy care what kind of substrate they are in, as long as the fertilisation is ok. :)

Personaly i grow plants on lava substrate, coarse base capped with a very fine moulded lava. It's completely inert and lava alledgedly has bad cec. It's a bit more coarse but comparable with sand only, there is nothing in it. The plants don't show and don't care as long as i add what they need.
 
How big's the tank/fish? You can get cheap large storage boxes and use those to hold the fish/plants whist you change the substrate. It's much easier/safer doing that sort of work without having to work around them.
 
How big's the tank/fish? You can get cheap large storage boxes and use those to hold the fish/plants whist you change the substrate. It's much easier/safer doing that sort of work without having to work around them.

200L tank, I have around 20 neon tetra, 6 grown platy a bunch of platy fry, 2 amano shrimp and 5 oto.

Think I will just use root tabs and very well rinsed gravel as I can just lay the gravel by the handful where I want it, try and do it on water change day too so water level is lower.
 
It would be easier to put the fish as mentioned in a storage box along with the existing filter system heater etc
Then decide on what you want to use as a substrate there’s so much information on here on that subject


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I get what you are all saying, I just want as little disruption to the fish and shrimp as possible hence why I will slowly put gravel on top with tabs slowly so I can make sure im not burying anything and create less mess.
 
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