Substate options

[Northerly]

I am adding plants to my 65 gallon, and have some substrate in the tank already that i purchase from my LFS. The owner had the substrate in one of his personal planted tanks at home. On the other hand i have eco-complete gravel which was recommended to me for plants. The gravel actually dissolved somewhat and turned into a dirt-like substance on the bottom. I mixed in some crushed coral or aragonite.. can't remember which. Either way, both substrates are a "lighter" gravel and were for planted tanks, which would you guys recommend? I think i remember reading somewhere that aragonite was beneficial to plants.

[homemadepopcorn]

Well both of those are going to raise your pH and I'm a bit confused by what you're asking exactly...

Are you asking what you should add to your substrate?

[Northerly]

Just trying to decide which substrate would the best choice in my setup.

EDIT: I can see your confusion after re-reading. The substrate IN the tank already was in the LFS owners planted tank at his home, and as far as i know it is not a buffer. The second batch which is NOT in any tank right was a mixture i made for my mbuna which didn't work very well for them due to the grain size. I removed that substrate and am now considering the fact that it could be beneficial in my planted tank. It is eco-complete, and i mixed in the crushed coral or aragonite(probably crushed coral) while it was still in the tank as a buffer. I have about 60-70 pounds of substrate in the tank now, and probably about 80-90 pounds of the other mixture. Hope this clears up what i was trying to say a bit.

[MCHRKiller]

Unless your hardness was very low...adding the aragonite or crushed coral was a poor decision. Plants typically do not like high pH or very hard water. In that case I would personally ditch the substrate you mixed this in and go for the other one.

[homemadepopcorn]

I wouldn't recommend using any kind of crushed coral or aragonite in a planted tank. A lot of aquarium plants come from acidic waters and it wouldn't do them much good to deviate from that.

Eco-complete on its own would be your best bet, but I'm not exactly sure how you'd manage to separate them.

[Northerly]

Alright thank you guys:) looks like i won't be messing with the substrate at all. And yeah that was a hasty decision with the crushed coral, worked for a bit for the mbuna though. Gave me some time to get the money for the sand i recently swapped to.