# Sand on substrate?



## Col1in (27 Oct 2017)

Hi, first post in this forum, thought I start with a dumb one!

Can you use Eco-complete or other plant substrates under sand? 

I have a 64l tank with aquatic pond compost capped with sand, its been running a few months now and is doing fine. I've ordered a 350l tank and want to use sand again but I'm think I should maybe get some proper substrate for longevity.

Initially I was thinking about building a valley/mountainous aquascape but have come round to the idea that something like that would be a nightmare to maintain. So I'm thinking of keeping it simple with the plants in the back and corners with some sort of feature in the middle. Fish-wise I'm going for tetra's and other small community fish. I live in a hard water area which suits them. 

I going for easy plants, java fern/moss Anubis, jungle val, and if that goes ok I'll 'branch' out.. 

Will also be doing co2 and dosing..


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## Kezzab (27 Oct 2017)

Yes you can, although some are abled to be used uncapped. I think this is mainly a question of personal taste. Bear in mind if you can it, it will.mix with sand unless you put a physical barrier between.


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## Col1in (28 Oct 2017)

Thanks Kezzab, decisions decisions!!!


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## Konsa (28 Oct 2017)

Hi
Sand is not the best plant growing media.U need to make sure is not too fine (like Argos playsand) as it compacts and chokes plant roots in time when the flow is blocked.
And U need to be on top of your fertiliser dosing too.
Regards Konsa


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## subterranean (4 Nov 2017)

To avoid the Eco Complete slowly making its way up above the sand, you can use a plastic mesh (available cheaply on ebay). I've done this with Tropica Plant Growth Substrate and it's worked well so far.


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## zozo (4 Nov 2017)

I have seen the most wonderfull planted tanks on sand only, the most impressive one was a 864 litre high tech. Asked the guy how he went about and he answered with nothing special, fert tabs and water column fertilization. And he never uses anything else than (White) sand only.

It is this one, tank is from 2014, pic is from 2015 i saw the tank late 2016 even more grown in and i know it's still running.






Made me wonder and look differently to all those bags of all kinds of substrate labled with spectacular stories.. Mean time you can have a equaly wonderfull story with something simple as sand only.


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## PARAGUAY (4 Nov 2017)

I still have it but now capped with gravel a tiny tank 10 litre used for trimmed or plants to grow on,at first I just covered aquatic compost with playsand but found the compost found its way up and ended up messy ,especially adding or removing anything so I redid it with capping gravel much better I found


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## zozo (4 Nov 2017)

Last summer i experimented with special Nymphaea compost soil.. It is very rich in clay.. When this soil is damp it can be molded like dough.. If you throw a ball against the wall it sticks. So i banked it up in the coners compressing it in realy ferm.. Caped it with 1 cm of coarse sand and capped this again with a fine gravel nothing in between to retain it. Planted some heavy rooters in it. It still is in place today the way i did put it in there.. I guess it doesn't shift because the addhesive property of the high amount of clay in it, keeping it together long enough till its completely rooted by the plants.  Strange stuff, because when i stick the tweezers or a finger in it, it feels like nothing us under there, its extremely soft and mushy and still very consistent in shape at the same time..


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## Col1in (4 Nov 2017)

This video by Dennis Wong is good . He says that aquatic plants get most of their nutrients from the water column. Nutrient rich substrate definitely helps but he seems to imply that dirt is all you need. I think I might just stick to pond compost and get some larger grained sand.

It seems there are a lot of products in this hobby that play on our fears. A lot of them are completely unnecessary. 

I just watched a video by the pondguru about filter media, he basically said all filter media is kak other than Biohome which he sells. However I'm fairly sure people have been using other media for years with no adverse effects. And I'm sure the Biohome media is good, but it's too expensive. Alfagrog is a fraction of the price and if its good enough for a pond it must be good enough for an aquarium.



zozo said:


> Last summer i experimented with special Nymphaea compost soil.. It is very rich in clay.. When this soil is damp it can be molded like dough.. If you throw a ball against the wall it sticks. So i banked it up in the coners compressing it in realy ferm.. Caped it with 1 cm of coarse sand and capped this again with a fine gravel nothing in between to retain it. Planted some heavy rooters in it. It still is in place today the way i did put it in there.. I guess it doesn't shift because the addhesive property of the high amount of clay in it, keeping it together long enough till its completely rooted by the plants.  Strange stuff, because when i stick the tweezers or a finger in it, it feels like nothing us under there, its extremely soft and mushy and still very consistent in shape at the same time..



Reminds me of the river we used to play in Spain when we were kids, it was clay and felt really weird, kinda slippy and slimy! Awesome fun throwing it off my brothers face!


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## Edvet (4 Nov 2017)

My tank (old version) with riversand , clay pellets under the swords, and water  column dosing:


38068787_00005295 by Ed Prust, on Flickr


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## Col1in (4 Nov 2017)

If I can get my tank looking like that I'll be very happy! Riversand??? So did you just take a bucket to your nearest river, fill it up with sand, give it a bit of a clean and plonk it in your tank? Or do you buy river sand? It makes sense to get materials from nature as they will have a lot of bacteria on them to help with cycling..


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## Edvet (4 Nov 2017)

I got the sand from a local sand suplier at the time, and i have been buying that same kind last years too. It's riversand. so rounded (not sharp as it hurts my corydoras ) but it's also not very fine but's from 2mm till small pebbles, so it doesn't compact. Of course there are malaysian trumpets in the tank to help with that.
At that time i was dosing a small dose of CO2 24/7. I had two large trickle filters and a big sump under the tank.


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## Bart Hazes (5 Nov 2017)

I initially experimented with different dirted setups: sand over pond soil, sand over ADA soil, sand over peat moss, sand over smelly black pond gunk dug up locally. Apart from the peat moss they all worked about equally well and the peat moss one may have given problems due to being treated for garden use. Since then I have used plain unwashed play sand, fine silty sand dug up from the bank of our river, and sterile pool filter sand. River bank sand increased hardness of my RO water so is used for livebearers only. All others again worked to my liking and now I just stick to the simplicity of plain sand. No washing, no risk of stirring up the dirt layer, less expense. I've never added root tabs, fertilized the water column (apart from trace elements) or added CO2. I think those do help the rate of plant growth and give more robust 'fuller' plants, at least for some types of plant. But if you don't mind waiting twice as long before you need to trim and replant your tank and are happy with healthy, growing but a bit skinnier plants than those of your hi-tech neighbour then you can keep it very simple.


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## Col1in (6 Nov 2017)

Yeah it's easy to get carried away, my small tank I have running just now is with play sand and compost and its going fine. The plants certainly ain't growing quick but I see what your saying about slower growth = less maintenance. They are getting a little bit of algae on the leaves but the platy's seem to like eating it. I've been looking into co2 systems and it does seem a bit daunting to be honest. It occurred to me that aquatic plants in the wild don't have co2 injection systems, so where do they get their co2 from?? The obvious answer is lakes and rivers have a much larger surface area for gas exchange. So does that mean that pumping air into the aquarium would increase co2 levels??


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## HiNtZ (6 Nov 2017)

Aren't some soil substrates reliant on being in contact with the water column for exchange of nutrients?


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## Edvet (26 Nov 2017)

Some soils can bind ferts and slowly release them, but with sufficient column feeding these are not necesary.


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## Edvet (26 Nov 2017)

Col1in said:


> aquatic plants in the wild don't have co2 injection systems


There are surprisingly few aquatic plants in nature. Most are emersed, bog plants (hence they can be grown and easily multiplied by the huge plantmanufacturers) and only survive seasonaly submerged.  In those locations where there are plentifull aquatic plants 1) water has to be clear enough to let light in, 2) flowing water replenishes CO2 3) temperatue and nourishment. In nature these places are far and few.
One of the most impressive is Bonito, Brasil, where there are some springs feeding a  creek system.


 
http://www.gettyimages.nl/detail/fo...kfotos/504174688?esource=SEO_GIS_CDN_Redirect


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