# Discussions about substrate



## edwardn (Nov 8, 2008)

There is forever going on discussion about what substrate to use in our fish tanks and I don't really understand why hobbyists spend fortunes on something, which either require a lot of, ridiculous at times work, like 'mineralizing' soil or spending small fortunes on store merchandising all sorts of troublesome soil 'inventions'.

Myself, I was always partial to small grained gravel, which always worked for me fine whether I washed to bottom layer of it, or not.

In my 180, which I started some month ago, I used red lava ( Home Depot) as a first layer, then Turface, which I topped with a layer of prewashed, fine grained filter gravel - a modification of my previous experiences with gravel alone. 

What I determined up to date is as follows:

this medium easy to insert plants,
easy to siphon out all debris and easy to wash gravel
plants root exceptionally well in it and grow beyond my expectations with a fraction of fertilizers recommeded by all sorts of 'gurus', and too fast for my liking even at that!

I use CO2 injection with an excellent and economical Azoo pressure regulator ($99) and wonder why anybody would pay more for that sort of contraption...

Here is an example of Echinodorus 'Marble Queen' ( 12" h x 20" w) grown in 10 wks from a unrooted cutting, and I already cut at least 10 leaves from it ( would anybody give me several CRS'ses for it, or it will go shortly to my LFS...).


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