Substrate advice

Re: Substrate advice

Onyx is my preferred substrate.

Given the water column's role with plant preferences, substrates play only one real role, cycling of waste(mulm). Even a soil rich substrate will not grow plants in a richly fertilized water column any better than a control.

You can even cut the roots off to prove this(I have a few studies where this was done).

So any porous substrate will be decent, but weight and grain size are the main things to consider.

I've been very pleased with Onyx on both counts.
I'm not partial to Flourite's color, but the solution is to plant the substrate!
There are other solutions as well.

In order for you to make a fair comparison, you need to balance to roles you want for each source of nutrients, substrate or the water column.

Onyx will supply some things, Fe/KH/Mg/Ca. But the Water column sounds much more the issue you have had.

I have no issues with any substrate, but I know some will do a better longer term job. If you focus more on the water column and less on the substrate, you'll have better results no matter what. It's easier to control but requires some consistent dosing, even that can be worked on with less light or non CO2 methods.


I'd prefer less root growth personally. Leaves look much nicer.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

Re: Substrate advice

Plain old Scott's brand ground peat is all I use.
Nothing special.
I do not use loose moss though, ground only and prewetted/soaked.

I don't add much. BD leonardite is very much like Onyx sand in appearence and is nice and heavy. I'll add about 1lb to 20 of Onyx.
It does not float.

The peat is only added at a handful per sq foot on the bottom, not much.

Onyx, unlike Floruitew, does not get algae attached to it like hair algae or BBA. The grains are small enough to moved around so that the algae do not have a good place to grow.

Flourite is larger and flat and almost too hard to remove some plant root systems from. So it makes a decent place for some algae species to grow.
I disturb the substrate ecvery so often for this reason with all the substrates.

Sub's also go flat if you slope them.
I prefer something that does not make a godawful mess everytime I rearrange things or start a new tank with old gravel.


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

Re: Substrate advice

Well Ken, you could have spent a few 1000$$ over many years like me first
There was no computers, no internet, no decent book of any kind when I started.

EC is not bad, I've used it, and was sort of happy, my main issue is the weight.

The soil sand tanks do bvery well in the start up, because there is plenty of nutrients for the plants, vs someone who did the same with a plain sand or plain Flourite, fluorite etc does not have macro nutrients.

ADA's substrate,power sand ALSO has macro nutrients in it as well, so comparing them on equal terms when not dosing the water column much in the start up is not a fair nor a reasonable assumption...........

Some might find this simpler in the start.
New folks often do not dose enough, they also do not add enoughg plants in the start, so adding macro's is good for those folks.

Roots.........well, if you add nutrients to the substrate and none/little to the water column, the plant has little chocie and invest in their roots to get the needed nutrients.............

If you add enough nuttrients in the water column, then you'll get less root biomass/plant shoot biomass ratio.



Regards,
Tom Barr