steed1172

what types of substrates are best for planting, are there aquarium "soils" or is sand my best bet, and WHAT sand to use....does the type of plants im going to use effect the best choice of substrate?....all these things i wish to know...

Beth1965

I have heavily planted tanks and use gravel in each of them
Many people use ecocomplete as a substrate for plants

Nutter

It does depend on what sort of plants you want to have. If you are going to have lots of plants that are not anchored in the substrate then almost any substrate will be good for you & you won't need to worry about a nutrient substrate. If you want to have lots of plants anchored in the substrate a nutrient substrate can be a worthwhile investment but definitley is not a requirement for having a nicely planted tank.
Good results are easily achieved with plain gravel or sand in conjunction with substrate fertilizer tablets. With gravel I prefer mixed grades for thier more natural look but grain sizes between 3-6mm will work just fine. For sand look for the largest grain size you can find to avoid compacting issues. I prefer to use gravel to sand in planted tanks simply because sand requires abit more maintainance, especially if it is a layer of sand more than about 1 1/2 inches thick. Gas bubbles can develop in the sand that are poisonous to both fish & plants but so long as the extra maintainance is not neglected sand can be a very good medium to use.
When it comes to nutrient substrates you need to be a little careful when you pick them as some of them can turn to mush rather quickly & will need to be replaced. Eco-complete is a good choice for beginers with these kind of substrates. Personally I use a thin very layer of laterite covered with another thin layer of sand, then I top that with an 1/2inch of flourite & then another 1 1/2inches of ungraded black gravel. I would not recommend my mixture to a novice though as many people have trouble with using laterite. When using any nutrient substrate always add fertilizer substrate tablets from time to time to keep the substrate topped up with minerals. This will extend it's working life in most cases. Sometimes even doubling it's life.
If you provide more details of exactly what you want to achieve I can be more specific about what will work well for you.

steed1172

i have rather large semi jagged gravel.... plant friendly?

steed1172

i would appreciate a carpeting plant of some sort and "medium" bushy plants tossed about to make a thinned out "forest"

Nutter

Depending on how large the gravel you are talking about is you may have issues. The larger grain sizes make it harder for plants to anchor themselves in as there is not as much surface area. This can especially be a problem with short carpeting plants as they generally have short & fine root systems. The other problems with large gravel are that excess food can fall in between the grains where fish can't get to it & it just rots away. Large grain gravels also have less surface area to provide a home for bacteria. Try to stick to grain sizes below 8mm or you will end up having problems or at least make maintainance very difficult. Sand would be a better choice than large grain gravel. Jagged gravel can cause issues with certain types of fish to. Can you post a pic of the gravel you have?What sort of plants are you thinking of or have you not decided yet? Also what type of fish do you want to keep?

steed1172

lol i haven't really decided on the plants... but i already have fish..plenty o' bacteria in my bio filter and sponge.... my gravel size is a lil bigger them bb size.... so its probly 7-8 mm, and yes cleaning in/under it is a hassel...
the plants i want so far come to a list of-
ciliata, mirco swords, cabomba(green), pygmy nana, dwarf baby tears... and ofcourse the plants i have now aswell as a banna plant

Nutter

Ok, well if it's jagged gravel the cory won't be liking that too much as they like to dig around in the substrate & jagged stuff can do serious damage to it's barbels. I'll bet it just skims over the surface of the gravel you have now instead of digging around in it.

As for the plants, they will grow in that size substrate ok but you will find everything will be happier with a smaller grain size. It's up to you wether you change of course but personally I would. Generally you wouldn't vaccuum the substrate all the way down to the base glass as there is lots of stuff in the mulm that plants can make use of. Also a good gravel substrate holds more good bacteria than any filter ever will. Try just vaccuuming the surface 1/2inch or so of the gravel in the future when you have plants established. Only vac down to the bottom in places where there are no plants or roots. Even then I would still only do the surface layer.

eiginh

Since you have cories and fine grain fertilized substrate will do good with plants. Keep in mind having a planted tank needs nutrients to thrive and depending on how advance with planting you want you may need co2 as well depending on how many WPG (watts per gallon) your lighting fixture have. I suggest having nutrient based substrate that are so your cories can dig in them I use eco-complete and the cory's love it. There is also carib sea sand or floura max onyx sand which is black. There's a lot you can choose from, here's a product line from caribsea http://www.caribsea.com/pages/produc...nted_aquar.htm there also adashop http://www.adgshop.com/Substrate_System_s/1.htm but if your only getting into serious aquascaping b/c they're substrates are expensive! I'm sure there are other brands but these are the ones I can think of atm.