# What substrates, if any, are you using in your intervertabrate tanks?



## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

My shrimp tank is Eco - Complete, although if I could do it again I would probably use Onyx sand mixed with a fine gravel for the buffering capacity. My water is super soft.


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

My tank with shrimp has Flourite.


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

Eco also although I would probably go with Onyx next time also.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

One of the tanks has Eco, and the smaller ones just have your "off the shelf" substrate in a natural color. It doesn't seem to make a difference to the shrimp, and I only have things like Anubias and mosses in there, so that works too.


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## amber2461 (Jun 15, 2004)

I have Onyx sand.


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## Robert (Feb 7, 2005)

Hi,
normally I use bare bottom tanks for shrimp breeding. There is just a small mulm layer but no gravel. In my show tank, which is mainly for shrimps, I use granit gravel. In Germany we don't have a product called "Eco-Complete", so I don't know what this actually is. 

regards

Robert


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## amber2461 (Jun 15, 2004)

~waves at Robert~


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## richy (Nov 8, 2004)

My set up is bare bottom with low light plants. The bottom is a big mass of java moss that covers the entire floor. The shrimp love going back and forth and up and down inbetween the holes and spaces in the java moss. They have plenty of spaces to hide above and below the moss.

I personally do not use any substrate and have no plans to try something different. I've read that because of the buffering capacity of eco or other fortified substrates, it may cause spikes in unwanted byproducts of the nitrogen cycle and cause the deaths of prized/beloved shrimp. Better safe than sorry. =) It sounds like a good number of the folks here have not had a problem with eco though, so maybe it's worth a shot.


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## turtlehead (Nov 27, 2004)

eco complete and laterite.


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

Actually, other than a recent reported bad batch of Eco Complete, buffering only lasts for a short time with the product. My water is very soft -- too soft -- and with Eco Complete it still registers as zero to 1 degree of alkalinity. I have to remember to add Calcium Carbonate for buffering and calcium for the shrimp (I prefer to do it that way). Buffering is good for tanks that inject Co2 which many planted shrimp tanks are.


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