# Talk to me about substrates :)



## Unnr (May 8, 2010)

I'm going to be moving to a larger tank in about 6 weeks, so I have a good oportunity to change substrates. Right now I have black "moonsand," and the new tank came with some light grey sand.

I'm thinking about adding some peat at the bottom, and I'm wondering if any of the special "plant" substrates are useful. I would like to stick with black and dark colours, but don't mind layering. 

I have cherry shrimp. In the current tank, I have a lot of thick and thin areas, and the Cardinals really do seem to like to settle in the hollows, kinda "surf" on the currents, and generally play around, so I'm planning a fairly deep layer in order to allow for quite a bit of variation.

(new tank is 35 gallons)

I don't have a water sample from the new place yet, and I'm trying not to be overly worried about PH, but I would like to head in the general direction of 6.8.
I'm quickly aquiring plants, in various ways, including a few that I actually BOUGHT  I will be attempting to light one end of the tank much brighter than the other, and use plants to make a bit of a screen about a third of the way over, so one end will be more plant-heavy than the other, but I'm basically intending to eventually plant as heavily as I can get away with. I like the look of a bit of variation, so I'm happy enough to mix it up, and not have the same stuff everywhere.

thanks! And sorry for all the really general basic questions!
-Unnr


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## AquariAM (Jan 28, 2010)

Sand over peat is a good way to make a gas timebomb under your sand IMO.

Get yourself some fluorite or fluorite and laterite or if you're made of money just laterite and a compressed co2 system. That kills both your birds with one stone.


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## Mr Fishies (Sep 21, 2007)

One thing that I think most will agree on is that in a planted tank, it doesn't matter if you use Eco complete, Fluorite, plain gravel, pool sand, it always takes time to "break in". Which is IMO to basically accumulate some mulm and other organics and get a good community of bacteria and tiny critters that feed off and contribute to the mix. Then, don't vacuum where your plants are so the nutrients stay intact.

Peat alone is a pretty acidic substance and doesn't really have much organic matter that your plants can use since it's kind of pickled and preserved. Also, it doesn't really make for a friendly environment.

I've had my best success pre-adding the organics using plain old organic garden soil. Soak, drain and dry it a few times and mix it in with the first .75-1 inch or so of gravel at about 1:3 soil to gravel ratio and it will provide enough organics to feed your root area for quite a long time - easily a year or more. You can do this only where you plan on having plants or the entire bottom of the tank. I've used as much as a 1" layer of pure soil under gravel and I can tell you that it lasted until just this year - about 5 years and crypts, hygro, ludwigia, dwarf sag, chain swords all just kept growing.

Yes, when you uproot and move plants around it can be messy, but once you get a good buildup of mulm you have pretty much the same thing.


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

I believe it is plantedtank.net that has an article about mineralized top soil. Basically you soak it for a month or so until all the organics are converted to another form so you don't get decomposition in your tank. The fastest way is to start with poor topsoil, low in organic material. Peat moss has value but only a small amount is needed. The way I did my one tank with soil was to mix gravel with soil about 50/50 and put a 1" layer in the tank. I then dusted the top with a very thin layer of peat moss. This was covered with about 1 1/2" layer of gravel. Plants have done very well in there for almost 3 years now, with only 1 bare unreflected T8 32W tube over it. The tank is only 12" deep, so this may be why it works. Plants include V.spiralis, dwarf sag, L. sessiflora, ludwiga, Java fern, and compacta sword.


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## arc (Mar 11, 2010)

> Sand over peat is a good way to make a gas timebomb under your sand IMO.


I'm guessing that coconut coir over normal black gravel wouldn't be too far off this either?
Was planning to use this setup for a new shrimp tank but am afraid that the coir would decay and kill them in the long run now.

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...-mineralized-soil-substrate-aaron-talbot.html

The mineralized top soil looks amazing but making it is seems really time consuming.

Extra link for info
http://www.aquariumslife.com/aquasc...bstrate/substrate-materials-planted-aquarium/


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## Mr Fishies (Sep 21, 2007)

Part of why I recommended a shallow, low concentration of soil was to allow skipping the lengthy mineralization process and go with a soak and drain or two. No matter what method you follow to prepare soil, mineralization, plain garden soil, worm castings...unless you are using a source or bag of soil you've tested or used before, you never really know what the components are and how it will react when submerged. When the layer is not so deep and dense the deposit of organics is on a much smaller scale so any quirks will be a lot easier to deal with by extra water changes if needed but the tank still gets a huge boost right from the start and for at least a year or more.

The mineralized earth method suggested in the links is an excellent way to provide a rich, long lasting source of nutrients for a planted tank. As I mentioned I used 1" deep soil bases in previous tanks and although the results were great there is a certain amount of mess involved when you move plants and rearrange. This mess needs to be dealt with by vacuuming up excess, making sure it doesn't settle on plant leaves etc. It's not a big issue IMO and worth the compromises. But for someone who doesn't know what they are getting into and may want to try a lot of different designs and plants in a new tank, it's not ideal.

I didn't want to try convert the OP to deep soil substrates, I was trying to steer away from peat alone and offer a suggestion for a loaded substrate that would be a bit easier to care for.

@Unnr: If loaded substrates are in your plan (and you want to learn about plants and planted tanks), the book "Ecology of the Planted Aquarium" is a great read. A bit scientific in some parts, but very informative. For no purchase necessary, reading the El Natural section at APC has a lot of soil based tank info, APC also has lot of info on mineralized top soil, google "aquarium worm castings" and several articles with good info on various sites come back. Organics in your tank are as close to a natural setting as we can get in our aquarium but educate yourself becuase a surprise tank full of stinky decompsing who knows what is worth avoiding.


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## Unnr (May 8, 2010)

Well, mineralization is something I could do to keep me from getting antsy between now and the move 

Thanks for the book req, I'll try and get a copy soon enough to give myself a run at doing fancy things if I decide I wanna  

(hint: this is the part where someone needs to tell me to keep it simple, stupid  )

-Unnr


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## AquariAM (Jan 28, 2010)

arc said:


> I'm guessing that coconut coir over normal black gravel wouldn't be too far off this either?


No that shouldn't be a problem at all. The issue with having peat, which is decayed and decaying organic matter, under sand, is that it would leach a lot of humic acid and let off a lot of gasses- which is fine if its anywhere else in your tank, but say you get a massive buildup of these under sand which can not escape. One day a huge bubble gets through and you get this huge infusion of acid and gas all at once, which is not good for your tank.


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