# Is this substrate good????



## Genin (Jan 28, 2007)

Hey everyone,
I am new to planted tanks and am still making my selections of what to use. I am going to be doing a mostly el-natural style planted aquarium. I was wondering if I could use this substrate AquariumPlants.com's own: Freshwater Plant Substrate instead of soil covered with a thin layer of gravel, which seems to be what most do for an el-natural tank. I won't do gravel vacs on it and will let the mulm build up, I may even initially use some fertilizer tabs so the mulm can build up. Do you think this will work? I won't be injecting C02 at all because I don't want to do that much maintenance,etc.

Feel free to give advice, critisizm, etc. I really don't know much about this subject, but I don't really want to use soil in my tank because with a piranha (will be housing my solitary piranha) they can kick up quite a bit of substrate when darting about and if the soil got into my water column I would be in a world of clean up  .

Thanks Everyone!


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## John N. (Dec 11, 2005)

I think your plan is sound and allowing the substrate to "mature" is what may people do unconsciously. The substrate you linked is fine, and will get you what you desire in terms of a low tech tank. It's practically the same as Turface Pro, and Soil Master Select but packaged by Aquarium plants.

Here's a link of how to set up the substrate that should give you an idea where to start. Also specifically regarding your question, here's a good thread about AP's Substrate.

Welcome to the forum!

-John N.


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## Genin (Jan 28, 2007)

John,
Thanks for the reply and for moving my topic to the appropriate forum  . I will check out the link.


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## evercl92 (Aug 14, 2006)

I have used it previously. Good stuff, fairly cheap (compared to eco complete). Nice color to it, dark gray/not quite black. I am helping a guy redo a 180gal (6x2x2) and only needed 2 buckets of that stuff, and got a 25lb bag of black gravel to give some texture. Was plenty to give a 2-3in layer. It's fairly 'dirty' though, so you'll need to give it a good rinsing before using it in your tank (I found this out the hard way).


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## nswhite (Aug 25, 2006)

Ya that substrate will work. What kind of piranha do you have? I have a Elongatus


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## Genin (Jan 28, 2007)

evercl92,
thanks for the heads up on the rinsing. I have never had plant substrate before, is there any specific way I should rinse it? With sand and gravel I used to just put it in a bucket, add water, swish around with hand, dump out dirty water and repeat until clear..... is this the same?

nswhite,
The tank will house my solitary red belly. Elongatus are beautiful. what kind of plants do you have in your elong tank?


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## evercl92 (Aug 14, 2006)

that's the way i've always rinsed as well. Again, I didn't read it, and it clouded the water pretty good. Used paper towels in the filter to catch debris, worked pretty well if they were changed every 12 hrs or so.


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