Plant-friendly Substrate

[bglaning]

hi, im looking for gravel that will be good for my plants. i know that flourite is very good, but i was hoping that there is something a little less expensive. does anyone know if the PETCO black aquarium gravel will work good or not? thanks!
Ben

[Maestro]

Regular gravel doesn't promote the growth of plants as well as specialty substrates like flourite, because they are mineral rich.

If you were looking for a black substrate, get Eco-Complete, I've used it before with great results.

[rich311k]

Regular gravel with root tabs added for rooted plants will work just fine. Eco and Flourite do a nice job but they are not cheap.

[bglaning]

thanks. i read that what makes the colored gravel bad for plants is the plastic coating that it has on it. is that correct? i also just found that the fertilizer and lighting are actually much more important than the gravel. if that is true, what fertilizers should i be getting?

[bglaning]

what are root tabs?

[rich311k]

These are root tabs ([Only Registered Users Can See Links.]). I have epxoy gravel in some of my tanks and the plants are fine. CO2, light and ferts must all be in balance. What you need depends on the lighting and plants.

[bglaning]

thanks. i just purchased a 2x24W Nova T5 light fixture and my largest plant is a sword. i also have a few smaller plants that i was told are very hardy, but i cant remember what they are called. one has red leaves and the other grows kind of horizontally and wraps itself around things like logs and rocks. do you know what i would be looking in regards to fertilizer with a setup like this?

[Sarkazmo]

Do yourself a favor and get Eco-Complete or one of the other plant substrates. Unless you want to keep buying plant tabs which will definitely be more expensive in the long run. EC comes in black or red. You can mix regular aquarium gravel in for color if you want, just don't over do it or you could thin down the effectiveness of the EC. It's OK to mix Flourite Sand in... or Flourite and such. You can even mix like EC and Flora Base or any of the other plant substrates.

Lighting is very important. 6500 degree Kelvin (6500k) or 6700K light is about the perfect spectrum for plants. This is considered "Daylight" by most bulb makers.

Putting your lights on a timer is VERY important. You need to make sure that plants are getting enough light not only in wattage but in duration. I use 5hrs on and 3hrs off. That gives plenty of viewing time, plenty of light for the plants and a steady day/night cycle for the fish and other inhabitants. Yes this does equal 15hrs of light a day which is way above what most will tell you but what this also gives me is incredible growth and photo periods that are short enough that algae cannot adapt well and limits it's growth. Excel (mentioned below) also helps keep the algae retarded.

CO2 becomes very important when your lighting gets above about 2-2.5 Watts per gallon. You can make a DIY CO2 generator that uses water, sugar, and yeast to produce the gas. Flourish Excel is more or less bottled CO2 (I use this daily at 1ml/10gallon.) The third option is the most expensive but is the best and that's a compressed CO2 system.

Fertilizer dosing is important. There's many choices here. I use Seachem's Flourish line. Flourish is basic fertilization with added minerals and such. Flourish Iron, Flourish Trace (adds trace elements,) Flourish Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium (the three essential macro nutrients also known as NPK) should also be dosed if deficiencies exist. Flourish is just what I use. There's many companies that make various fertilizers. You can even mix your own NPK solutions. If you want info on mixing your own do a Google search for PMDD (Poor Mans Dosing Drops.)

More confused yet? Yeah, it's a lot to wrap your brain around but we all had to start somewhere. With time, study, and dedication you can achieve great results though!

Sark

[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]

[bglaning]

thanks, but i dont think that the light fixture i just purchased has a timer

[Sarkazmo]

It may not have one but you can plug it in to a timer. You can get one that's flexible enough for about $10 at WalMart.

Sark

[rich311k]

What size is the tank? Lighting dictates everything else. A sword will do just fine in regular old gravel. By the way you would need the root tabs in the eco until it matures.

[bglaning]

oh cool. thanks!

[bglaning]

its a 25 gallon tank

[rich311k]

So you are going to have roughly 2 watts per gallon. That should grow a nice variety of plants. You will not need CO2 but it always helps growth if you decide to go that way. The substrrate is up to you. if you think you will want a heavly planted beauty you may want to get the Eco as changing substrates can be a pain. if you plan on a few plants etc, the I would go with a regualar substrate.

This tank has eco:

[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]

This one does not:

[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]

[Lab_Rat]

If you really want to go with regular gravel you can add a layer of laterite below the gravel to help the rooting plants with iron in addition to root tabs. I use flourite in my tanks and love it. I think it's worth the extra cash.

[bglaning]

thanks guys. i was thinking of maybe going with half regular black gravel and half black eco or flourite. does that sound like it will work?

[bglaning]

love the tank pics by the way!

[bglaning]

anybody know if mixing regular black gravel and black eco or flourite will work well?

[SkyBaby]

anybody know if mixing regular black gravel and black eco or flourite will work well?

You could mix it, but keep in mind mixing the eco or the flourite with gravel will dilute the nutrients and minerals in the eco/flourite. I'm no plant expert though. I've only had my tank running for a few months now. It has plain gravel in it and non of my plants are doing well (except the rotala and anacharis) even though I'm dosing ferts. I'm going to pull my gravel out and replace it entirely with flourite. That's just been my experience. Good luck!

[Lab_Rat]

anybody know if mixing regular black gravel and black eco or flourite will work well?

You can mix it, I had flourite mixed with a coarse sand/fine gravel in my old planted tank and my current planted tank is 2 bags of flourite sand and 1 bag TMS. From what I've been advised, flourite is a better substrate than the new Eco-complete (guess the quality control went out the window a couple of years ago).

[bglaning]

thanks guys, im gona go see what they have at petsmart

[Wild Turkey]

In most cases EC costs about the same as gravel, 1$/lb. (petco carries it now in some places also)

I have it in almost all of my tanks and love it. It looks more natural than uniform black or grey gravel, beneficial for plants and comes with some heterotrophic bacteria in the bag as long as it doesnt ship to you frozen. Thats the bacteria that turns fish food and waste into "mulm" or "gunk" thats also gold for plants, but not the nitro- bacteria that cycles a tank for clarification.

Finally I like that it is just sandy enough to support plants that usually dont like to grow in large gravel, but not sandy enough where its a pain in the butt to do anything in the tank.

Any of the plant substrates though I think will make your life a little easier. Plant tabs are expensive mainly because they're hard to procure in bulk imo, but expensive none the less in the long haul.

Good luck! Once you go planted you dont go back!

[bglaning]

alrite, after looking at all the prices and the amount of time everything would take me i ended up just going with the regular small estes pebbles gravel. it was half the price of flourite, and took a lot less time to prepare (you have to rinse flourite for hours, and let it settle in the tank for at least 24 hrs. before putting the fish back in). the gravel is natural and doesnt have any of that plastic coating. i also bought flourish excel. hopefully my plants start growing. then i can try to get some pics up. now if my light would just come already!