Recommendations for planted tank substrate??

Hello,

I was unsure whether to put this under the gravel forum or the plants forum, but I chose this one as I am specifically talking about substrates for plants and I figured that posting here would attract more of a plant-experienced crowd.

So I am looking to try out a plant intended substrate for my 55 gallon. The tank will be heavily planted and I want something that allows the plants to get lots of nutrients from their roots in the ground. It will also need to support carpeting plants well. The tank will most likely not have any bottom dwellers other than kribensis so sharpness will probably not be an issue. I do not want something that will leech ammonia, but being nutrient loaded would be ideal, though I am not opposed to using root tabs. Cost effective options are also ideal but if the best option is on the more expensive side, that is fine. I may mix some crushed coral with it to raise KH, but i dont know if that matters. I will also be injecting CO2. Im not necessarily against whether the substrate wears out or not as long as it will last me at least a year (preferably a year and a half to 2 years).

Thanks guys.

 

I would do a high quality aquasoil. I have used ADA Amazonia, UNS Controsoil, and Tropica Soil. ADA by far gives you the best growth, I'd say UNS Controsoil is a close second.

ADA releases a lot of ammonia which is great for cycling a tank, but if you want something with little to no ammonia I'd go with Controsoil.

 

ADA releases a lot of ammonia which is great for cycling a tank, but if you want something with little to no ammonia I'd go with Controsoil.

Well ive never considered the ammonia from substrate to be beneficial. When I heard it i just assumed it would be inherently bad. After the tank is cycled, would the substrate still be causing some ammonia, or would my ammonia eventually reach 0 PPM again?

 

Unfortunately there is not a single substrate you can buy that will meet all your goals you have laid out.

Aqua soils are nutrient rich, but will wear out / leach ammonia and eat up KH, which you shouldn't dose into a planted tank with aqua soil anyway.

Dirt capped with sand can work, but it will leach ammonia and is very dirty / sometimes unpredictable.

Gravel / sand / Eco-Complete / Flourite will work, but they have no nutrients.

Calcined Montmorillonite Clay might be your best option, it's cheap, and can uptake nutrients from the water to supply the roots (not needed in a planted tank by the way).

 

ADA Amazonia Light is suppose to leech less ammonia so maybe that will suit your aquarium.

 

I would do a high quality aquasoil. I have used ADA Amazonia, UNS Controsoil, and Tropica Soil. ADA by far gives you the best growth, I'd say UNS Controsoil is a close second.

ADA releases a lot of ammonia which is great for cycling a tank, but if you want something with little to no ammonia I'd go with Controsoil.

Don't mean to hijack this, but I just read your carpeting thread and I'm wondering if you could answer this for me.

Do all these aquasoils permanently lower pH? I was just looking at the UNS Controsoil and it shows that it it keeps the pH below 7. My tanks have a pH of 7.6 and that much of a swing may harm my livestock.

Thanks!

 

Don't mean to hijack this, but I just read your carpeting thread and I'm wondering if you could answer this for me.

Do all these aquasoils permanently lower pH? I was just looking at the UNS Controsoil and it shows that it it keeps the pH below 7. My tanks have a pH of 7.6 and that much of a swing may harm my livestock.

Thanks!

Controsoil holds my water around 6.6, and the pH change is very gradual.

However...

The higher your KH, the faster the substrate's ability to buffer water is depleted. With a KH of 0 you can expect a lifespan of around 2 years; in alkaline water you can expect it to be depleted in a few months or even a few weeks.

You can have water at a pH of 8.0 and buffer it down with an aquasoil, but you are making it work much harder to lower the pH and it will burn out quickly, losing it's ability to buffer water but still retaining it's nutrients. Plants prefer softer, more acidic water as a general rule of thumb, so the dip in pH isn't a bad thing, unless you keep livestock that need a higher pH and alkalinity.

 

Thank you!

 

Well ive never considered the ammonia from substrate to be beneficial. When I heard it i just assumed it would be inherently bad. After the tank is cycled, would the substrate still be causing some ammonia, or would my ammonia eventually reach 0 PPM again?

Ammonia will go to 0 after a few weeks. The ADA Amazonia soil granules contain ammonia at the center, so they eventually stop leaching, but still contain the ammonia for roots to reach. Ammonia is often preferred over nitrate.

If you don't want this I'd also suggest UNS or Tropica. Never rinse an aquasoil, and keep the KH as low as possible

 

I use organic potting soil with a sand cap. having good results with my dwarf sag so far

 

I use organic potting soil with a sand cap. having good results with my dwarf sag so far

Ive been thinking of doing this. How are water changes? Do you vacuum at all? Does it kick up a bit even with a cap?

 

Ive been thinking of doing this. How are water changes? Do you vacuum at all? Does it kick up a bit even with a cap?

with sand. i only vaccum the surface also by making a small tornado to kick up debris as sand gets sucked up easily

 

Well ive never considered the ammonia from substrate to be beneficial. When I heard it i just assumed it would be inherently bad. After the tank is cycled, would the substrate still be causing some ammonia, or would my ammonia eventually reach 0 PPM again?

I can unequivocally answer these questions for you. Because I mix my own aquasoil. I also have a 55 gallon tank, so if you are interested in the recipe then check out my thread with the link in my sig.

Yes mine used potting soil which released ammonia and lots of it. But if you are going to cycle a new aquarium you have to have an ammonia source to get it started. So I didn't have to add fish food, pieces of shrimp, or liquid ammonia. The ammonia in my tank was released in a natural way.

I added some seeded media from another tank along with the new media in my canister filter, and did water changes to control the amount of ammonia. Started all this on June 13, and today my cycle is complete. No more ammonia because the beneficial bacteria (Nitrosomonas) that eats ammonia is colonized and going strong. With seeded media it took about three weeks to cycle.

I have seven amazon swords of different sizes and species and each one is lush and green.

 

If you don't want this I'd also suggest UNS or Tropica. Never rinse an aquasoil, and keep the KH as low as possible

Controsoil holds my water around 6.6, and the pH change is very gradual.

However...

The higher your KH, the faster the substrate's ability to buffer water is depleted. With a KH of 0 you can expect a lifespan of around 2 years; in alkaline water you can expect it to be depleted in a few months or even a few weeks.

You can have water at a pH of 8.0 and buffer it down with an aquasoil, but you are making it work much harder to lower the pH and it will burn out quickly, losing it's ability to buffer water but still retaining it's nutrients. Plants prefer softer, more acidic water as a general rule of thumb, so the dip in pH isn't a bad thing, unless you keep livestock that need a higher pH and alkalinity.

Thanks for the info everyone. I am a little confused about the whole KH part. I inject CO2 so my ph drops to about 6.8 during the day (KH between 3-4 without crushed coral) unless I use crushed coral which I normally do to raise KH to a constant 7 dKH as well as keep my pH at or above 7 during the day. I'm worried that using an aquasoil to buffer the water down would bring my pH too low, especially since it seems that people are saying to keep my KH low, which would obviously translate to no crushed coral. Why is it best to have KH low? Would combining the buffering capacity of CO2 with that of an aquasoil result in pH too low? I would like a safe pH free of swings, and I find that using crushed coral is a great way for me to accomplish that. Also, Fahn mentioned that once the soil loses its buffering capacity, it still has nutrients. If I were to use crushed coral to cancel the buffering capacity so as to keep my KH and pH higher, would this cause any other problems, or would I just have a nutrient dense substrate that doesnt lower my pH?

 

First once your fish are acclimated to your water source ph, don't mess with it because chasing ph up and down is really hard on your fish. Second the best way to control ph is with water changes, just like everything else bad for your fish wc is the best answer.

I know this is getting confusing but I can only say what I know from experience. I don't have any experience with co2 or crushed coral. But I do with aquasoil. In making my own and doing research there are ingredients in the aquasoil that lowers ph, however there are other ingredients that raises ph, so for me it was a wash. I never saw any kind of ph difference from my water source which is 7.6.

But like I said I did lots of water changes in the beginning even though the tank is fishless. Ok I did setup an expermental 10 gallon tank that I did no water changes just to see and it got really nasty with homemade aquasoil. Not nasty in that the soil mixed with the water, because the cap keep it down. I am talking about tannin released in the water from peat humus. I used the peat humus because at the time I had not found peat moss. There is a differnce between peat moss and peat humus I found out. The peat humus dropped the ph a complete degree from 7.6 down to the low 6. something. And the water smelled nasty, like a sewer. I dumped the whole thing out.

So having learned this when mixing the aquasoil for my 55 gallon I used peat moss, not peat humus. I did lots of water changes and it turned out great. I have slowed down on the water changes and checking the chemistry of the water it has stabilized. The water is beautiful and clean, the smell is great, plants are doing great, and the ph is stable. The cycle for my 55 gallon is almost complete and getting close to safely adding fish. In the previous reply I said my cycle was complete, but I got a nitrite spike so I have to amend that.

 

Thanks for the info everyone. I am a little confused about the whole KH part. I inject CO2 so my ph drops to about 6.8 during the day (KH between 3-4 without crushed coral) unless I use crushed coral which I normally do to raise KH to a constant 7 dKH as well as keep my pH at or above 7 during the day. I'm worried that using an aquasoil to buffer the water down would bring my pH too low, especially since it seems that people are saying to keep my KH low, which would obviously translate to no crushed coral. Why is it best to have KH low? Would combining the buffering capacity of CO2 with that of an aquasoil result in pH too low? I would like a safe pH free of swings, and I find that using crushed coral is a great way for me to accomplish that. Also, Fahn mentioned that once the soil loses its buffering capacity, it still has nutrients. If I were to use crushed coral to cancel the buffering capacity so as to keep my KH and pH higher, would this cause any other problems, or would I just have a nutrient dense substrate that doesnt lower my pH?

Adding crushed coral to try to cancel out the affects of the CO2 is just causing yourself more trouble and creating more pH fluctuations. pH fluctuations from CO2 happen over the coarse of several hours and do NOT affect the KH of your water. Aquasoil will affect your KH and GH, but may not pull the KH completely down to 0.

Here is WHY a low KH is preferable in a planted tank:

-it takes less bps of CO2 to hit your target range of 30ppm
-plants grow and perform better in acidic water
-many tropical fish, with a few exceptions (livebearers, for example), prefer soft acidic water
-at a neutral/acidic pH (lower as a result of lower KH), ammonia is less toxic as it starts converting to ammonium

 

Thanks for the info everyone. I am a little confused about the whole KH part. I inject CO2 so my ph drops to about 6.8 during the day (KH between 3-4 without crushed coral) unless I use crushed coral which I normally do to raise KH to a constant 7 dKH as well as keep my pH at or above 7 during the day. I'm worried that using an aquasoil to buffer the water down would bring my pH too low, especially since it seems that people are saying to keep my KH low, which would obviously translate to no crushed coral. Why is it best to have KH low? Would combining the buffering capacity of CO2 with that of an aquasoil result in pH too low? I would like a safe pH free of swings, and I find that using crushed coral is a great way for me to accomplish that. Also, Fahn mentioned that once the soil loses its buffering capacity, it still has nutrients. If I were to use crushed coral to cancel the buffering capacity so as to keep my KH and pH higher, would this cause any other problems, or would I just have a nutrient dense substrate that doesnt lower my pH?

You don't really need KH for most livestock. KH is used to buffer pH, but if the aquasoil is buffering the pH, then KH is not needed. I hope that makes sense.

Aquasoils do lower pH, but they hold them steady at that lower pH too, without the need for KH.

You're going to get pH swings if you use CO2, regardless of KH. The pH swing as a result of CO2 is not dangerous. A pH swing as a result of KH change is dangerous, because it affects osmoregulation. Don't fight the pH swing by changing KH, because that's what will harm livestock. If you continue to add KH while using an aquasoil, you may cause KH fluctuations.

 

There are some very experienced and knowledgeable people here with great advice. A reading of 7.0 is neutral, readings below 7.0 is acidic and above is alkaline. Here is an image showing this.




But for someone like me whose tap water chemistry has a Kh of 7 and ph of 7.6 should not go messing with the ph unless it is absolutely necessary and you know what you are doing, right down to the real reasons of doing so. There are plenty of plant and animal species that I can keep in my tanks that will do just fine. Do extensive research into your water sources chemistry and research into what can live in it and thrive in it.

You will need these two kits to test your water chemistry.

API Master Freshwater Test Kit

GH and KH test kits