Tropical Fish Forum

Tropical Fish Keeping => General Fishkeeping Chat => Topic started by: Matt on March 30, 2020, 03:24:47 AM

Title: What substrate do you have?
Post by: Matt on March 30, 2020, 03:24:47 AM: I thought it might be interesting to see what planting substrates people have and to see if they wish they had chosen something differently with the benefit of hindsight. I started the hobby with gravel as most of us do but quickly switched to have a mixture of planting substrate and sand. I am now leaning towards having basically plain sand. I would use some root tabs under plants that needed it. I find maintenance of sand so much easier than gravel and the mixing of two substrates over time is really annoying, and not giving me the low maintenance aquarium I desire...

Let me know if I’ve missed anything and I can add it to the poll...
Title: Re: What substrate do you have?
Post by: Sue on March 30, 2020, 10:41:28 AM: None of my plants are rooted in the substrate - I am I still allowed to vote?

Though I have put some elodea/egeria or whatever it's called these days, in the sand in my betta's tank but it's far too soon to to know whether it will survive.
Title: Re: What substrate do you have?
Post by: fcmf on March 30, 2020, 12:44:33 PM: Good point, Sue.
Most folk have substrate.
However, there's a vast spectrum of whether or not they keep live plants - from those who have never kept live plants, to those who have a permanent full aquascape involving live plants, and all sorts of possibilities in between (eg keep some not planted in the substrate, intermittently keep plants whether in/out of the substrate or a combination of both. etc,etc).

Edited to add: Unipac Tana Sand plus a little Unipac Limpopo Sand mix. Depth approx 1cm.
Title: Re: What substrate do you have?
Post by: jaypeecee on March 30, 2020, 12:55:05 PM: Hi @Matt

You may be aware that I started a thread addressing substrates on A N Other forum. I finally decided on Unipac Samoa Fine Sand. It's got the grain size that I wanted and I liked the variety of grain colours - all natural. I used to run my main (community) tank with a bottom layer of TetraPlant CompleteSubstrate topped off with a 6 - 7cm layer of JBL Manado. But, it's very early days with this new substrate. I've only just started filling the tank with water. Watch this space! Progress is v-e-r-y slow right now.

JPC
Title: Re: What substrate do you have?
Post by: Sue on March 30, 2020, 02:51:24 PM: I have B D Trading sand in my main tank, but I have only plants attached to wood and floating plants.
The betta's tank has Unipac Silica Sand, the elodea/egeria/whatever is planted in it, the other plants are attached to wood.
Title: Re: What substrate do you have?
Post by: Matt on March 30, 2020, 05:01:01 PM: Quote from: Sue on March 30, 2020, 10:41:28 AM
None of my plants are rooted in the substrate - I am I still allowed to vote?

Definitely @Sue that’s part of what I thought it might be interesting understand. This isn’t just about plants but things in general :)
Title: Re: What substrate do you have?
Post by: Sue on March 30, 2020, 06:44:14 PM: I've voted :)
Title: Re: What substrate do you have?
Post by: Littlefish on March 30, 2020, 08:16:30 PM: Me too.
Even though I have multiple tanks, the heavily planted ones are usually planting substrate with sand on top. Another is sand & root tabs, and the others (river & axolotls) are mainly anubius & bucephalandra.
In the past most of my tanks were planting substrate & sand.
Title: Re: What substrate do you have?
Post by: daveyng on April 02, 2020, 02:03:41 PM: I use Tetra Complete covered with JBL Manado in planted tanks. I have used playsand in my Tanganyikan tank.
Title: Re: What substrate do you have?
Post by: Matt on April 02, 2020, 08:34:41 PM: I’ve just added (ie aquasoil) to option 5 to avoid any confusion with option 3 :)