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I'm Unsure Which Direction To Go In..

Buggy

Member
Joined
15 Mar 2022
Messages
61
Location
North West, England
(Tank: 116cm x 37.5cm x 60cm / 46" x 15" x 24")

Whilst waiting for the delivery of my first aquarium I have been researching substrates, but I've become a little confused with which way to go.

I would like to get to the point where I am able to try my hand at all kinds of plants, from easy to the more difficult, eventually. So from the off it seems wise to make sure that I won't regret my choice of substrate.

From the five LFS's I've been in, none have had more than gravel as an option, so it looks like I'll have to order online. I noticed from looking on the Tropica website that they have three options. One being a Plant Growth Substrate, and the other two being Aquarium Soil.

I understand that the Plant Growth Substrate should be lay on the bottom, and then capped with something else.

With this is mind:
Would Plant Growth Substrate, capped with an inert gravel, be more or less beneficial than using purely Aquarium Soil?
Would capping Plant Growth Substrate with Aquarium Soil be overkill?
Is there a particular website that is known within the community as being the best place to order substrate?

Please feel free to use layman's terms!
 
It’s all personal choice
There’s no simple answer
There’s no perfect media

Think about fertilisers
Do you want the substrate to feed the plants or are you going to add fertilisers to the substrate or add them to the water like e i ?

Are you going hi tech or low tech ?

As you can see there’s so many variables that’s why there’s no simple answers

Read about all the points raised then decide what you are going to do about a substrate

There’s plenty to read on here

Also budget and size if tank will also help you make decisions

Happy Reading


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Think about fertilisers
Do you want the substrate to feed the plants or are you going to add fertilisers to the substrate or add them to the water like e i ?

Are you going hi tech or low tech ?
I wasn't planning on the EI approach. I've been more thinking of feeding via the substrate, accompanied with CO2 via a pressurized cylinder.
Whether that approach is classed as hi or low tech I'm not sure.

I'm aware that the lighting that comes with the aquarium won't be enough, but I haven't started to look into that yet. But I do know that the lighting I start with will be more than enough for a heavily planted tank of that size.
 
I have bean experimenting with john innes no3 capped with fine gravel in low tech tanks and have been amazed by the growth. I have two.

1. A nano running a desk lamp with a 5w daylight e14 bulb that has minimal filtration and flow

2. 120l with an Amazon 40w cheap plant led strip that’s running at 60% now after ramping up from 40%. Over stocked as it contains fish from my old 500l that are waiting on a new 4ft tank

Neither tank has any form of added co2 and yet I have carpet plants like dwarf hairgrass and marsilea hirsuta growing rapidly and I’m trimming stems weekly.

I had so much success in my smaller tank that I’ve been able to take a lot over a couple of weeks to transplant into the bigger tank. The little tank was only started in Feb.

I struggled to get carpet plants to grow with proper plant substrates with Fluval plant lights and CO2 over thr past 10 years so definitely considering soil in my new big tank when I get it.

None of the usual new tank algae issues despite one being overstocked

 
If you want a really safe mainstream choice then Tropica soil or ADA soil is a solid choice. Doing all soil and no sand will avoid the issue of them mixing, and you will not be limited by your substrate. Inert sand/gravel can work, various things capped with various other things can work (but can be messy). From what I understand with your post you just want the most future oriented option.
 
I've been more thinking of feeding via the substrate, accompanied with CO2 via a pressurized cylinder.
Whether that approach is classed as hi or low tech I'm not sure.
Any supplementation of CO2, whether by gas or by liquid should automatically be considered high tech.
I'm aware that the lighting that comes with the aquarium won't be enough
This is completely untrue and you are strongly advised to avoid this critical error made by many hobbyists. Less light is better. Learn to grow plants with the light that comes with the tank. In high tech tanks %90-%95 of all problems are caused by poor implementation of CO2 techniques.

Cheers,
 
Hi @Buggy, I couldn't agree more with what @ceg4048 said above. I have pretty cheap (sh*t) lights that came with my tanks (in a bundle) at default intensity they are almost frying my fish (and plants)... If you are able to regulate the intensity down(!) that's all you need - if you can't do that I recommend getting some water proof electrical tape from the hardware store to blind off some of the LEDs, as you may need it.
Cheers,
Michael
 
This is completely untrue and you are strongly advised to avoid this critical error made by many hobbyists. Less light is better. Learn to grow plants with the light that comes with the tank. In high tech tanks %90-%95 of all problems are caused by poor implementation of CO2 techniques.
Thank you very much for that. From reading other threads on this forum before I registered I noticed that a lot of the time there was advice from other members that went against the regular and often repeated norm. It's why I decided to make my home here.
I've found it difficult in getting information about the light that comes with it. All I know is that it's a 30W LED, featuring white and RGB LEDs, with separate blue LED function.

I'm happy to stick with it and make it work. I hadn't actually started to research lighting yet but I think I had become buried by the usual formula that people mention with regards the wattage or lumens per litre etc
 
I’m no aquascaper but I’ve had a 350 litre running for a good few years now and the substrate is 50:50 pond soil and peat moss covered in a plastic mesh and topped with fine gravel I don’t currently use any frets and it’s a jungle in there
I do grow tonnes of Riccia in this tank which I dish out to friends all the time so it must be getting fed by the numbers of fish I have

There’s a thread about pond soil / pear moss on here that’s a good read


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I completely agree about the lighting - too much lighting is a huge problem, much moreso than too little. Think carefully about getting good water flow in your set-up and that doesn't necessarily mean a filter. I'm starting to believe that if you have good water flow you don't actually need any filtration at all - this is the approach I'm taking in one of my low tech tanks and it's been successful so far.
 
If you want a really safe mainstream choice then Tropica soil or ADA soil is a solid choice.
+1 for @Hufsa ’s suggestion. I’m not a CO2 user, but do have tanks with just Tropica soil: it’s a very straightforward option at set up, and the plants (and shrimp) like it.
I personally wouldn’t go mixing my own soil for a large, first tank. That’s for tanks 2, 3, 4…. 🙂
 
Hi there,
I've used both Tropica Aquarium Soil and Tropica Substrate. The substrate I capped with sand and gravel, both are available at Pets at Home.
I found both to be good but I think the Substrate gives better plant growth over time & I have never had any issues with cloudy water. I changed to the substrate as I felt the aesthetic look was more natural & I got fed up looking at the uniform dark brown colour of the aquarium soil!
Totally agree with all the comments about lighting not needing to be super bright. If you start low you can always brighten it and floating plants filter the light perfectly.
 
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