# Need help deciding on a substrate



## Rainbow (Feb 25, 2013)

Hi All

I have been pondering for months now about substrates. Im about to start a 220L high tech tank with FE C02 injection, and dosing EI ferts into the water column using dry salts. I cannot afford to buy commercial substrate for a tank of this size, and to be honest I question if they are really worth the expensive price tags. I have already purchased some black small grain moler clay from a bonsai supplier, and 3 bags of carribsea black tahition moon sand.

I know that I don't need to have nutrients in my substrate because the moler clay has a high CEC and can grab nutrients that I dose into my water column for my plants routes, but I have come to the conclusion that I should add ferts into my substrate as an insurance policy, so that if I miss the odd dose or want to go away on holiday for a weekend, it wouldn't be too much of a problem. I would also like to be able to move a plant without causing too much mess or releasing ammonia or other unwanted things from the substrate.

After research I have come up with the following options and I would like to get as many opinions as possible about the best choice :

1. Just use inert substrates that I already have and rely on water column dosing and rout tabs if I go on holiday.

2. Use a 50/50 mix of a commercial substrate such as ADA or similar, and make up the other half with my moler clay on top.

3. Use a commercial plant compost such as jbl aquabasis or tropica plant substrate, and cap it with plastic mesh and moler clay.

4. Do a DIY version of 3 above using sphagnum peat moss, mulm, osmocote, coated with a plastic mesh and then use my moler clay on top.

5. Something else 

At the moment I am in the mindset that number 2 might be best, it might be more expensive but it won't cause too much mess when I want to move plants or rescape. 

Whats your thoughts?

I appreciate any advice 

Thanks
Paul


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## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

I would avoid trying to layer and cap things because it turns into a huge mess when uprooting plants and what not. Unless you have a lot of money to burn and buy substrate I'd skip commercial substrates all together (though 220L isn't very big, I had actually read the post thinking it was 220 gallons lol) 
Anyways it seems like you just want substrate on a budget. Here's what comes to mind:
1) Use quartz sand/pool filter/black diamond blasting sand or other inert substrate and fertilizer water column+osmocote root tabs. Plenty of people have done this and achieve great results.

2) Make mineralized topsoil and cap with sand or other substrate. There are plenty of tutorials on how to do this.

3) Buy turface or Safe t sorb. Both are fired clay products and essentially the same thing as flourite. The catch is that they're really dusty, as in 10 washes later and the water will still be cloudy (I just wash it a few times and let the tank settle and run the filter before doing anything else). But the plus side is that a 50 pound bag is like 10-15 dollars. You can preload it with nutrients as Roy has done here (http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/journals/88933-roys-75-gallon-adventure.html) or you can just use it and dose the water column and over time it'll "soak" up nutrients and release it to plant roots. I don't bother nutrient loading mine and it's been fine. One thing to note about using turface is that it's pretty light and not heavy and dense. Of course it still sinks but it's almost like sand in terms of how easy it shifts.

4) Buy other people's used ADA aquasoil or substrates. You'd be surprised how much hobbyists end up throwing out.

Best of luck!


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## Rakaal (Mar 10, 2016)

On my low tech tank I bought a bag of flourite, mixed it with some leftover playsand from my kids sandbox project, and topped it with some river rock (pea gravel) pebbles. Works great for my crypts. They are growing out of control. No root tabs needed.


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## Aquaticz (May 22, 2009)

I have used oil - dry as a substrate- worked great - see more in archives


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