Jake’s Planted Aquarium Pages

Specialized planted tank substrates are nice. They aren’t always necessary, but many times they are just plain nice to have. Here is a listing of a few kinds:

Eco Complete - Made by CaribSea, black in color. It is volcanic rock based ( probably more to it then that, but that’s what I’m going with), and “Contains iron, calcium,
magnesium, potassium, sulfur plus over 25 other elements to nourish your aquatic plants.”. There was a recent problem with this product, as it is typically a “dump into tank without rinsing” substrate, but the liquid in some bags was notably a milky white in color. It turns out that many bags were contaminated with excess calcium carbonate , and a clarifier of some kind was added to rectify the situation by precipitating the calcium carbonate out. Many people experienced anything from sky-rocketing phosphates to extreme high gh/kh, but were greeted with excellent customer service and replacement bags of Eco Complete in an expedient manner. It holds plants very well , including small plants, and is excellent for crypts species of plants. Crypts are famous for “crypt rot” when the plants are moved or newly planted, and for some reason, in my experience, this substrate prevents that from happening in most cases.

There have also been a few problems lately as to the grain size or color, as this is a natural product that is mined. Some people have received bags that are “sandy” in consistency and even more recently people have received bags with multi-colored pieces. If you’re looking for an all-black substrate to fit within your aquascape, you might want to pass this one up. If you do receive a multi-colored bag they are apparently swapping them out for the all-black, but there is now an all-black substrate from Seachem that might be a better bet if you want your substrate to be 100% black for sure.

Flourite - Made by Seachem, it is a clay-based substrate that comes in either red or regular. It contains aluminum, barium, calcium, cobalt, chromium, copper, iron, potassium, magnesium, manganese, sodium, nickel, vanadium, and zinc. The regular flourite is appears brownish/reddish with black specks, but they also have flourite “red”. Two guesses as to what color that is. As of February 2008 I’ve become aware of some places on the internet selling some of their new offerings, to include Flourite “black” and Flourite “dark” as well. Yipee!

ADA/ADG substrates - The most spoken about one is aqua soil amazonia “normal”. It is supposed to be all natural, soft and not able to scratch the glass, and make your tank more acidic. You can actually break this stuff up, so it’s not good for forever, but it’s good long enough to allow you to get your $$$ worth. It sounds like it should be super expensive coming from Amano, but it’s really not. A 9 liter bag isn’t really more expensive than the same amount of an American brand, and in some cases probably cheaper. You don’t have to rinse it and everyone I know that has tried it will not use anything else. They also have an Amazonia II “normal” , a more recent addition, that has less incidence of  water coloring or cloudiness. There was a slight problem with the Amazonia II as of late, whereas the granules of it was pulverizing way too easily, but they have offered full replacements for this. ADA is known for quality, so you can be assured that the problem will be quickly rectified. This minor setback hasn’t skewed my desire to try the Amazonia II out in the least.

I know some people use their “powder” type substrates too, incorporating either that or the “power sand” into the Aqua Soil substrate. ADG says that the Aqua Soil substrate is not designed to be used by itself, but I know of several people that do just that with no problems.

Their 9 liter bag is approximately 20 pounds.

Other - (coming soon)Recently “discovered” substrates - (coming soon)

Natural substrates - ( coming soon)

Making regular gravel acceptable for plants - (coming soon)

Putting the substrate in - (coming soon)

How much substrate do you need? - (coming soon)

Substrate calculator - For Flourite, Eco Complete, silica sand, and regular gravel try this substrate calculator. For ADG aquasoil, they offer this substrate calculator, which may need to be adjusted if you’re not using their Power Sand.