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soil substrate, mesh or not ?

sa80mark

Member
Joined
2 Oct 2007
Messages
859
Location
Leicester
Ive been reading up on soil substrate and have come across tons of info but what I cant find an answer to is wether on not to use a mesh screen between the soil and sand cap

What do you do ?
 
I tried a mesh, but root's grew through it making moving plant's a messy affair.
I have since just capped the dirt, and try not to move plant's any more than i have to.
 
:( it works for me...I suppose it's just a question of how much initial scaping and re-scaping you think you might do before you're happy. In which case it could prevent your tank turning in to a muddy puddle. I have to admit though Alastair and roadmaster are also right, pulling up established plants can be a two handed job, one hand to hold the substrate down.
But overall I like to have a distinct separation, it makes maintenance easier if you need to turn algae covered light coloured gravel over or vacuum etc I suppose in my case that's more important because I tend to run my low-energy soil substrate tanks in the same way I run my high-energy fuel injected ones...the only difference is CO2, obviously.
 
Rather than completely removing plants I pull them up just enough to cut the roots off at an inch or so, as you would do before replanting them anyway.
 
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