New Tank - What Substrate for Plants?

Just got a new Aquatlantis Elite Horizon 100 tank. It's 230 litres and I'll be setting it up over the next few days. Details below:

www.aquatlantis.com/uk-frame-produtos.php?id_produto=51

I got it in Blanchardstown for an all in price of €850. This included the filter, heater, substrate, artificial plants, food and additives.

The kit only included an internal Fluval, but I upgraded to a Fluval 304 external at the expense of the heater, artificial plants, food and additives which I don't need.

In terms of the substrate - should I use fertiliser under the substrate? I have seen this recommended, but not sure it's necessary. If I do, will it be messy when cleaning the gravel?

Thanks,

first of all im not jealous of your new tank :shock:

realy depends on how much area you are going to give to plants in your set up, although plants will do a lot better WITH an under gravel fert. in particular the likes of swords that take up most of thier intake through the roots. then what type you want to use as there is a few different types, and they MUST be put in b4 you add the water or you end up with the mess i had (not a pretty site) wackers do the new tropica fert for about €20.its like a very light floating clay which untill it gets soaked with water will float if your not careful. then you have the gravel type of fert of which i have not used

I think I've decided against using a substrate type fertiliser. I imagine it would be messy when it comes to gravel cleaning. I won't have a heavily planted tank anyway so would prefer to add either the liquid or tablet type fertilisers as I have been doing to date.

Blanchardstown have bags of fertiliser for €52 euro each (ouch!). I would need two for my tanke (extra ouch!).

I'll give the additive fertiliser a try and see how it goes.

Woodies also stock aquarium compost and its a good deal cheaper than 52 bells a bag. I think it was 32 euro for a 30 - 40 liter bag. I cant remember the actual size. It was in the pond section but I can only presume that it would be suitable for planted aquariums.

That sounds good, i'm gonna do a big overhaul of my planted tank after Christmas. I might look into that.

Aquatic soil/compost under my sand substrate. Upgrade the lighting and get heating cables. Already have co2 but its useless without the other things being right.

Don't use the pond fertiliser.

I have always been very stubborn what it comes to fertilizing.

First of all I have never been comfortable using under gravel fertilizing with gravel. There is too big potential for algae growth since big part of fertilizers are released through the airy "grains" into the water and then it's the algae that really uses it for growing purposes. Whole fertilizer is meant for plant roots but it won't stay there with gravel.

Gravel is pretty handy. In time it makes itself naturally fertilizing. With this I mean that part of the dirt goes between the gravel and ends up deeper and so creates one kind of natural fertilizing there.
I never needed any bottom fertilizers with my tanks since I left the dirt be there on the bottom and cleaned only the visible (surface of the gravel) part of the gravel during weekly water change. Only exception I made was that I added Tetra Crypto for plant roots of the most "demanding" plants (such as Echinodorus-species and Cryptocorynes and Rotala macrandra who have grown far more better roots in gravel as in any other substrate) and I just used liquid to fill the other hole of fertilizing. Didn't even add CO2 then. Make it simple I meant that I always left dirt in the lower levels of the substrate.

I became curious. Do you use sand as a substrate much here? With sand I mean granular size about from 2 to 5 millimeters?

I'm new here and haven't read my way through here yet so I'm without any further knowledge.
I'm Finnish and in Finland sand is the substrate what aquarium hobbyists use and you don't get chance to talk about gravel so often. I'm probably the only aquarium hobbyist in Finland who prefers gravel over sand

I used sand as a substrate in my tanks for 3 years and found it much more harder to maintain but also realized how necessary the fertilizing is for it since the dirt stays on the surface and won't disappear and create this fertilizing effect.

To make the long story short. I would leave the pond substrate to shop (since water conditions of the pond are different as in tank starting from the amount of water) as writer Gavin said.
I might even be so brave to say that leave the fertilizer in the under gravel-form away as well and stick with fertilizing tablets to minimize the attacks of the algae (since gravel does release fertilizing in to the water and algae seems to love artificial fertilizers more) and add to the shopping list the liquid fertilizer and I think you'll be fine.

Hi Sarah,

I personally use sand, grains between 1.5-2mm. Keeping discus and other South Americans. Plants are mainly Echinodorus. I just squeeze a small clay ball amongst the roots at that's as much fertilizer they get.

Set up a few tanks for frinds and neighbours. Used fine gravel in those and that's works better for them because they prefer a somewhat heavier planted tank.

Holger

I've been using Sera Florenette A tablets for the roots (half tablet per plant every two weeks) and Leaf Zone liquid once per week. I have the following plants:

Anubias Barteri - on bogwood
Anubias diverse - not doing that well, think it needs more light
microsorum pterapus - on bogwood
Echindorus Blereri - slow growing, but my starlight plecos love it
Limnophila aquatica - fast growing and has plently of light at the rear of my tank.

Started getting algae recently and added CO2. For two reasons, for the plants and to bring my pH down. Plants certainly improved, but so did the algae . Have reduced the hours my lights are on (down to 10 and may go to 8 ) and will ease off the ferts. I have two plecos that poo a lot so that should create plenty of root fertiliser . I'll make sure I don't vac too much around the plant roots in future.

Do you get Easy-Life - products from here? I haven't tested myself (since I don't even have a tank now) but my friends and fish forum in Finland go on and on about Easy-Life EasyCarbo.

That product is considered to be a toxic (and it does kill fish if dosage is exceeded and should not be used if you have shrimps) it is said to kill algae nicely. I kind of have a some knowledge about this since I did shifts in one of the aquarium stores in Finland cleaning fish tanks (meaning also scraping the glass and following the plant growth) and it did seem to keep algae away and plant growth was pretty amazing in two out of two tanks which it was used. And that's what they're saying in fish forum as well.
I was thinking that it could be something to try if you get totally devastated with algae and it won't seem to get away. One liquid would be CO2 -fertilization and algae-stopper at the same time.
Just a thought really.

I also have to tell you that it must be poisonous liquid since my boss, the shop owner, refused to drink it. Story tells he had been seen tasting other aquarium liquids such as Aqua-Safe.
So next time you're having a party and you're in need of punch try adding Aqua-Safe...

Christ, I drank some weird stuff in college... Aquasafe wasn't one of them. Sniffed worse things in chemistry labs Never mind.

Stay away from all those algae killers. Short term solution to an long term problem. Don't work on the balck annoying bushy ones anyway and plants don't like it either.
By the way, you can get Easy Life stuff over here

Holger

Stay away from all those algae killers.

Normally I would agree with all my heart but in this case it's CO2 dosage-method (which is told to have a nice side effect).
As you said algae problem is a symptom, but lacking CO2 is one of reasons why algae appears so adding CO2 in this way could be actually way of treating the problem - not just a way of removing algae.

And I just wanted to add that I don't know if lack of CO2 is a problem in this case - this was just a general notice considering the liquid

Actually a lack of CO2 will not let algae grow any faster. They are plants after all and need CO2 for photosynthesis. What generally causes algae in tanks is an over-abundance of nutrients such as NO3, PO4, etc.
If you add co2 to your tank, you are trying to promote growth of higher plants so that they out-compete the algae. That's why fast growing plants like Hygrophylia are recommended for start ups. They are very fast growing and thus strip the water of nutrients.
All the CO2 in the world will be of no benefit if you do not have sufficient lightning and will dissapate into the air.