Advice for plant friendly substrate to be capped with sand

[AndyHamp]

Hi, first post here so pleas be gentle.

We're installing a new (bigger) tank and want to improve the planting we currently have in the old tank. Currently we have a pure sand substrate and need to stick with sand as we have a lot of Cory's in our fish collection. But we have found growing a good variety of plant very hard with a pure sand substrate.

Can anyone suggest a plant boosting substrate we could use ? I have spent many hours reading various forum threads and have just ended up very confused.....

Andy

 

[roadmaster]

For larger tanks,Is hard to beat plain old topsoil capped with sand in my humble opinion.
Is cheap as well.

 

[Julian]

Any substrate will work if you are dosing fertilizers. I'd recommend you take a look at the EI starter kit on APFUK. Get some measuring spoons and you're good to go.

 

[Chris Jackson]

Dennerle produce Deponit Mix which has worked really well for me long term under 1-2mm gravel and I can only imagine it would be good under sand also.