Recommendations needed for New Substrate

[REDSTEVEO]

Hi Guys,

Anyone who knows me on here will remember my journal 'The Full Monty'

As you will have read, the Full Monty gradually over two years became a semi planted Discus tank, and eventually, sadly into a bare bottomed Wild Discus tank.

Well the Discus have all gone to a new home, so I am stripping down my tank, binning all the filter media and starting again from scratch.

The intention is to use 30 X 10 cm natural slate tiles and section off areas to the right, back centre and left sides of the base of the tank. So creating a sectioned planting area leaving a centre section for my Bogwood centre piece.

I am asking for advice / views on my new selection of planting substrate. I have read some of the posts on here and seen some conflicting views. Previously I have only gone with ADA Substrates, Amazonia soil etc. But now I am looking at planting substrates from Tetra, JBL, Caribsea Eco Complete, Tropica and a few others. Having read some of the reviews I am totally unsure which one to go with this time around.

Any advice or recommendations would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Steve

 

[techfool]

I like tropica aquarium soil. Plants root well in it. It does kick up quite a lot of dust, but that settles quite quickly.
I certainly don't recommend coarse gravel, it's a pain to plant into.

 

[Tim Harrison]

It can appear to be something of a minefield, but from what I've read the better Gucci substrates all make very similar claims; I've used Amazonia and Colombo Florabase before and they're very similar.
I think I'd be tempted to try Tropica Aquarium Soil - the all in one substrate, not the Plant Growth Substrate that needs capping - if only because it's easier to get hold of in the UK and competitively priced.
However, all things being equal I'd probably stick with what I know and use Amazonia. Although, that said, I will try the Tropica product at some point.

 

[REDSTEVEO]

Thanks guys, A long time ago I used the Tropica Soil and when it got wet it turned into a solid kind of mud. Whenever you tried to relocate a plant it made the water very dirty and took ages to clear.

I am thinking of using the JBL, Plant Pro base substrate and the JBL Plant Pro On top.