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Substrate

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Dudlee84

Seedling
Joined
23 Jan 2017
Messages
4
Location
West Mids
HI Guys

I am thinking of moving away from African Cichlids and hence have the sand/crushed coral substrate associated in my 8ft, has anyone any experience of using this in a planted scape? I was looking at a low tech set up to start as new to the planted side of things and would prefer to keep my existing substrate as im a big fan of the look as much as anything?

I look forward to your thoughts :)
 
Believe crushed coral might limit the type of fishes somewhat to live bearer's,danio's,white cloud's,some rainbow's, other fishes that might thrive in hard alkaline water.
Plain sand minus the crushed coral ,might allow for wider range of fishes.?
 
Hi all,
Dudlee84 said:
I am thinking of moving away from African Cichlids and hence have the sand/crushed coral substrate associated in my 8ft, has anyone any experience of using this in a planted scape? I was looking at a low tech set up to start as new to the planted side of things and would prefer to keep my existing substrate as im a big fan of the look as much as anything?
Click to expand...
It will limit what plants you can grow to some degree, but Vallisneria will grow, and V. spiralis and V. aethiopica are native to the Rift lakes (Lake Malawi Vallisneria bed below).

Another native option would be Ceratophyllum demersum.



cheers Darrel
 
roadmaster said:
Believe crushed coral might limit the type of fishes somewhat to live bearer's,danio's,white cloud's,some rainbow's, other fishes that might thrive in hard alkaline water.
Plain sand minus the crushed coral ,might allow for wider range of fishes.?
Click to expand...
It's about a 50/50 split between plain sand and crushed coral sand, I'm not convinced the crushed coral sand buffers the water as much as people suggest, maybe the effect is diluted due to not being all coral sand and the water volume (approx 1000l) I have as I use salts/additives to achieve the water conditions required for f0 fish. I was hoping to go down the c02 route once I have done more research if that would make any difference?
 
Hi all,
Dudlee84 said:
I'm not convinced the crushed coral sand buffers the water as much as people suggest, maybe the effect is diluted due to not being all coral sand and the water volume (approx 1000l
Click to expand...
As long as it hasn't all dissolved? It should always buffer the water to ~pH8.

The calcium carbonate (CaCO3) is only soluble due to the dissolved CO2 in the water, which is dependent upon the level of atmospheric CO2 (~400ppm).

You can easily tell if the water is fully carbonate buffered by adding a more soluble carbonate (and basically they are all more soluble than CaCO3), like sodium or potassium bicarbonate (Na/KHCO3).

As soon as you add the bicarbonate salt a fine dust of calcium carbonate will precipitate out of the tank water, due to the <"common ion effect">.

The same would happen if you added a more soluble calcium compound, like CaCl, the water wouldn't be saturated with chloride ions (Cl-), but it would be with calcium ions (Ca++) and a less soluble calcium compound (in this case CaCO3) would precipitate out.

cheers Darrel
 
What about plants not planted directly into the substrate? I plan on introducing a fair amount of bogwood or similar, would plants/mosses That latch on/grow from these be ok?
 
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