# best substrate



## APCRandall (Feb 2, 2007)

Hey I wanna make a tank. What is the best substrate ada amazonia flourite or eco complete?


----------



## Homer_Simpson (Apr 2, 2007)

There are others far more experienced than me who can probably better answer that. I am still a noob but these are my observations. I am currently experimenting with Schultz Aquatic Soil in a 2.5 gallon tank and Fluorite in a 10 gallon. Plants in both started out excellent. The Schultz Aquatic soil was only $8 vs fluorite at $32. Unfortunately, the 2.5 gallon with Schultz Aquatic Soil is beginning to develop thread algae, whereas the 10 gallon with Fluorite is pretty much algae free(both have been up and running for the same period of time and have the same plants). The difference may have more to do with tank volumes, quantity of plants and the fact that the 10 gallon gets C02 treatment whereas the 2.5 gallon does not. 

I would say go with the fluorite. I wanted to test Eco-complete and amazonia but was unable to obtain it locally.

I am in the process of setting up two more tanks with alternating layers of fluorite and schultz aquatic soil to cut down on substrate costs. Once the tanks are up and running. I will post my obervations and pictures and hopefully other noobs may find this useful.

By the way if you go with fluorite, be prepared to rinse the hell out of it. I rinsed it no less than 100 times and believe it or not it still clouded the water a reddish color and took several water changes and changes of the filter polyfibre to clear it up. On the other hand, after rinsing the Schultz Aquatic soil only 10 times, the water did not cloud up at all.


----------



## fishfan (Feb 19, 2006)

What color do you want? Eco complete is black, the aquasoil is also dark I believe, and Flourite is orange-brown. I think they all work good.


----------



## skincareaddicted (Mar 19, 2007)

I am new also and just finished planting a 10 and a 2.5 gallon tank. I started out with this cheap walmart potting soil with gravel on top but the results were disastrous. I bought the potting soil with wood pieces in it and had a floating brown mess. I couldn't anchor the plants down either even with the gravel layer. I just finally gave up and ordered eco-complete online at aquariumplants.com, they had a free shipping promotion for $24 total. 

I am so glad I ordered eco-complete because it is sooo easy to work with and i had no problems anchoring plants down. No gravel layer was required either. I hope that helps.

Cheers, Kristen


----------



## goalcreas (Nov 20, 2006)

Homer, yes you are right, it has to do with the fact that one gets Co2 and the other does not.
Try to use some Flourish Excel if you are not already, did not read your whole post, I am getting ready to turn in tonight.

Eco is great, ADA is great and SMS, Schultz and Flourite are all good options, depends on budget and what you are trying to do.

I will post more tomorrow about this as I have tanks with everything but the Flourite, but it's composition is so similar to Schultz, SMS and Turface that there is not too much difference other then color and silica and iron content. Of course the silica could play a part in the algae, but you should be able to balance a tank around it.

My personal favorite is Eco as I think it looks best. The ADA is great stuff, but not always a good choice for beginners.
One reason is the ammonia spikes (easily fixed) and that you have to dose lightly at first and know when to start dosing more, or take the expensive route and only dose ADA products.
Another reason for it not being good for beginners is that it just grows plants SOOOOOOOO well that you don't get to learn to grow them yourself and when problems happen, you will be lost because you have not learned the tricks. That being said, IME it grows plants the best, but I still tend to set up more tanks with ECO anyways.


----------



## eklikewhoa (Jul 24, 2006)

I have used inert sand with seachem root tabs, eco, flora base and ADA and in this order I would choose.....ADA, flora base, inert sand w/ tabs and my last choice would be eco


----------



## Homer_Simpson (Apr 2, 2007)

goalcreas said:


> Homer, yes you are right, it has to do with the fact that one gets Co2 and the other does not.
> Try to use some Flourish Excel if you are not already, did not read your whole post, I am getting ready to turn in tonight...


Thanks goalcreas for shedding some light on this mystery. I was dosing Fluorish Excel at .25 ml daily and just recently began dosing 1 Ml every 2 days in an attempt to reverse the thread algae growth. I was afraid of using a C02 generator for fear of causing a PH crash and killing my Dwarf Frog and cherry shrimp.

After reading your comments and those of others on Eco-Complete, I am thinking I should have just ordered the Eco-Complete on-line and bit the bullet(re: cost. It is really expensive to order on-line given that shipping charges are calculated by weight and not only shipping location, lol)

Sorry to get off topic folks.


----------



## ianmoede (Jan 17, 2005)

APCRandall said:


> Hey I wanna make a tank. What is the best substrate ada amazonia flourite or eco complete?


You're gonna have to decide this for yourself. Heres the knowledge i can bestow on you

FLourite = red = dusty at first washing, might scratch your glass
Aquasoil = Black = clayey, expensive, best plant growth for me
EC = similar to Aquasoil.

THeyll all do about the same thing, pick one and run with it. If you dont like it swap it out


----------



## ezeke1 (May 1, 2007)

My 65gal uses Flourite as the substrate and I like it. The substrate is very easy to work with and I have no trouble planting the plants with it. It almost seems like the plants love it because there's little time between plantings and the roots sprouting. 

The only complaint I have about it is that you have to clean the Flourite really REALLy well before putting it in the tank. I made the mistake initially of doing a light rinsing then dumping it in my tank and setting off a dust cloud. The cloud didn't clear after 5 days so I emptied the tank and refilled it which helped.

I should also add that the color is red just like clay. If thats the look you want then great, but if you want black, go with ADA. Hopefully one day I'll have a ADA iwagumi and I'll definitely be going with ADA soil hehe.


----------



## bradac56 (May 9, 2007)

skincareaddicted said:


> I am new also and just finished planting a 10 and a 2.5 gallon tank. I started out with this cheap walmart potting soil with gravel on top but the results were disastrous. I bought the potting soil with wood pieces in it and had a floating brown mess. I couldn't anchor the plants down either even with the gravel layer. I just finally gave up and ordered eco-complete online at aquariumplants.com, they had a free shipping promotion for $24 total.
> 
> I am so glad I ordered eco-complete because it is sooo easy to work with and i had no problems anchoring plants down. No gravel layer was required either. I hope that helps.
> 
> Cheers, Kristen


What type of soil did you buy? From my experience Wal-Mart does not carry any potting soil
that does not contain fertilizers which would kill your tank. Potting soil works well as a substrate
but you have to buy a non-fertilizer brand from a landscaping store.

I'm a Flourite fan myself if you pre-rinse the hell out of it you won't have any clouding issues
and it works and looks great.


----------



## bradac56 (May 9, 2007)

Homer_Simpson said:


> There are others far more experienced than me who can probably better answer that. I am still a noob but these are my observations. I am currently experimenting with Schultz Aquatic Soil in a 2.5 gallon tank and Fluorite in a 10 gallon. Plants in both started out excellent. The Schultz Aquatic soil was only $8 vs fluorite at $32. Unfortunately, the 2.5 gallon with Schultz Aquatic Soil is beginning to develop thread algae, whereas the 10 gallon with Fluorite is pretty much algae free(both have been up and running for the same period of time and have the same plants). The difference may have more to do with tank volumes, quantity of plants and the fact that the 10 gallon gets C02 treatment whereas the 2.5 gallon does not.


I don't think there is much of a difference between the two substrates but more about
the size of the tanks. The 2.5gal tank is going to be harder to keep algae blooms from
happening in just by the nature of the smaller habitat. The bigger the tank the easier
it is to maintain.


----------



## skincareaddicted (Mar 19, 2007)

bradac56 said:


> What type of soil did you buy? From my experience Wal-Mart does not carry any potting soil
> that does not contain fertilizers which would kill your tank. Potting soil works well as a substrate
> but you have to buy a non-fertilizer brand from a landscaping store.
> 
> ...


It's called supersoil potting soil. From what I remember, I don't recall anything about extra fertilizers, i could be wrong though. Anyhow, I don't like having to rinse soil or adding an extra layer of gravel so I love eco-complete since it's so easy.


----------



## goalcreas (Nov 20, 2006)

bradac56 said:


> I don't think there is much of a difference between the two substrates but more about
> the size of the tanks. The 2.5gal tank is going to be harder to keep algae blooms from
> happening in just by the nature of the smaller habitat. The bigger the tank the easier
> it is to maintain.


Well, I have a 2.5 gallon and it is the most stable habitat that I own.
There is never any algae, I do zero to no dosing, no Co2 and 27 watts of light.
It is a cherry shrimp farm, so I am sure that they help, I feed them lightly, so they have lettle choice, if they want more food, then they have to eat what is in the tank.

However, IME if you have two tanks and treat them the SAME except for one has Co2 and the other does not, then you will have a problem in one of them. That might be our case here. I have heard how great Excel is for fighting algae, but IME it does zero to nothing. Maybe I don't dose it heavy enough, or spot dose it, but I tried that once and nothing. That also has to do with the fact that the tank had just not finished stabalizing at that time. Sometimes, you just need to let some of the algae run it's course and then you don't have problems with it ever again. At least IME.


----------

