(newbie) question about sand and substrate

[BasiliskCrane]

hi

i've got a little coldwater/freshwater 40 x 20 x 20 cm tank (will only have ramshorn snails and cherry shrimp living in it), that i'm hoping to set up in the next couple of days. and so i was wondering if you could help me out with something i'm rather unsure about.
i want to grow some live plants.

i have some 'UNIPAC' aquatic decor sand, which i now know on its own won't be good enough to grow anything in. so i googled, and several of websites all suggested layering plant substrate and then sand on top, but i'd rather just mix them together (i think it'd look nicer), but nothing i've found has said that this would be ''ok"? should i not mix them??

hoping you can help.

thanks,
Basilisk Crane

[fr499y]

Don’t, just use sand and root tabs

Plant substrate is good for 12-24 months then needs replacing, I personally only use sand with root tabs and/or liquid fertiliser.

[Stephen]

I use Tropica plant substrate (1cm deep) topped with at least 2cm of the chosen sand.
The plant substrate needs to be capped and can not be mixed with the sand.
Alternately you can use a different plant substrate without any other bottom layer. I'm thinking Seachem Flourite Black, Fluval Plant and Shrimp Stratum, CaribSea Eco Complete Planted Aquarium Substrate etc...

[plankton]

Welcome to the forum.
As above, you can just use root tabs for plants that need a lot of feeding, rather than spend the money on a plant substrate for underneath sand....but...
If you want plants that are a bit difficult to grow then a substrate may be a good idea to give the roots a start and then boost with tabs after that's depleted it's goodness.

[BasiliskCrane]

Don’t, just use sand and root tabs

Plant substrate is good for 12-24 months then needs replacing, I personally only use sand with root tabs and/or liquid fertiliser.

hr fr499y

thank you for the speedy advise! just plain old googling was getting me nowhere...


many thanks,

Basilisk Crane

[BasiliskCrane]

Welcome to the forum.
As above, you can just use root tabs for plants that need a lot of feeding, rather than spend the money on a plant substrate for underneath sand....but...
If you want plants that are a bit difficult to grow then a substrate may be a good idea to give the roots a start and then boost with tabs after that's depleted it's goodness.

hi Plankton,

thanks for the helpful advise! was really confused. ‍♀


Basilisk Crane

[fr499y]

The easier way is to crush root tabs and sprinkle into the bottom of the tank before adding sand, or breaking them up and placing into the key planting areas (depends on the type of root tab).

[Lo1]

You can place some of the aquarium soil recommendations above into fine net bags, flatten them out and place where you are going to put your Plants.

Put your layer of sand in, and plant your plants above. The roots will work their way into the bag.

The bags will stop the soil getting out into the tank and can be changed without ripping the tank up.

[mikeyboy123]

It depend what plants you want to grow. If you are growing epiphytes and/or water column feeders and/or floating plants then you can just have plain sand and use a liquid fertiliser. If you want easy to grow root feeders then just use root tabs. I've got two tanks a similar size to yours and the vallis and anarcharis grow like crazy and my 3 mini anubias are growing very well too. I use TNC light liquid ferts and I put root tabs in the areas where the vallis is, nothing else.

I've never grown any challenging plants so perhaps an aquatic soil would be necessary for some plants, I don't know, but the plants I have are constantly threatening to take over.

[VikingMummy2015]

Depends what plants you want. I have only had sand for well over a year now and don’t add any ferts or root tabs these days. Cryptocorynes doing great, and then I also have Anubias and Java fern that just feed from the water.