The Puffer Forum

Hey guys
What substrate for a planted tank?
Thx

John Innes number 1 lol. What brands do you have available at your local places? Most stores near me have little to offer for a planted tank, not a particularly helpful post from me I'm afraid lol

bertie 83 wrote:John Innes number 1 lol. What brands do you have available at your local places? Most stores near me have little to offer for a planted tank, not a particularly helpful post from me I'm afraid lol

Hey bertie
What does john innes number 1 mean?

Sorry it's a compost I use for my gardening job. Red Sea do a good substrate, it's called Red Sea flora or something like that

I've got a bunch of Anubias to sell off, as soon as it's warm enough to ship.

Shipping to the uk would likely be rather pricy though lol.

bertie 83 wrote:Sorry it's a compost I use for my gardening job. Red Sea do a good substrate, it's called Red Sea flora or something like that

Haha
I contacted green machine and they said to use amazonia ada aquasoil. To cover the base of my tank will cost about £50!

John Innes probably wouldn't be too bad if capped and you waited for the ammonia spike to die down and you also wouldn't want to rescape very often either because you'd risk releasing more ammonia and debris.
There are loads of substrates available and some are more expensive than others. You can grow plants in inert sand if you like but you will need to dose more ferts into the water more regularly. an active substrate will give you more leeway but you'll still need to dose the water column as well - more & more often as the substrate ages and the ferts diminish.
If you don't want to have to replace your substrate very often (or at all) then look for one with a high cation exchange capacity (CEC) which basically means it can absorb ferts from the water column and retain them making them available to the plants roots. Some use products that aren't marketed as aquatic substrates - some use unperfumed cat litter because some can have a have a high clay content and so have good CEC and some use Akadama which is marketed as a bonsai soil. Here is a link to a forum with a review on some commonly available aquatic substrates:
http://www.ukaps.org/index.php?page=guide-to-substrates

Arny wrote:

bertie 83 wrote:Sorry it's a compost I use for my gardening job. Red Sea do a good substrate, it's called Red Sea flora or something like that

Haha
I contacted green machine and they said to use amazonia ada aquasoil. To cover the base of my tank will cost about £50!

The Green Machine is a specialist planted tank shop. ADA is the designer label in aquascaping so they would say that
If you've got money to burn it probably is a very good choice

Arny wrote:

bertie 83 wrote:Sorry it's a compost I use for my gardening job. Red Sea do a good substrate, it's called Red Sea flora or something like that

Haha
I contacted green machine and they said to use amazonia ada aquasoil. To cover the base of my tank will cost about £50!

£50!?!?!? Are you using a swimming pool for a tank? 60l of john Innes is only £4 at most lol. Follow what was said above, it will deplete and you will still end up ferting loads at the end. You can get tabs to put in your substrate. What plants were you thinking of having?