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Thoughts on nutribase and sand for low tech

F

fz1ben

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24 May 2013
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99
Hi all
I'm setting up a small planted nano(superfish scaper 45) for my 7 year old son. He's showing an amazing intrest in the hobby especially the plants which is great and it gives me a pass to set up another freshwater water tank.

I'm pretty set with all aspects of the set up, I'm definitely going the low tech route as already have 2 sps dominated reef tanks to look after. However that being said I'm a little unsure of which substrate to go for. I'm not keen on the aesthetics of aquasoil and maybe over kill in low tech? My local shop has colombo nutribase in stock which sounds good but I have no experience with this product so a little unsure. Would the nutribase capped with something inert like sand and fine gravel be a good choice for easy low tech plants? If not any other suggestions would be great?

Thanks
Ben
 
He also has very soft water and adds a lot of plants.

He also uses scaper tanks, filters and lights which you already have.
 
Yes I watched alot of his videos but didn't notice him using nutribase, ill have another look over them. I can make the water parameters to suit ad I have around 600l of Ro on hand at all time, was going to use 70/30 ro to tap. I'm planning on loads of plants and fast growing easy stems as well as plenty of floating plants. What sort of depth of nutribase would you aim for?
 
This isn't directly answering your question, but if you're ever unsure how many KG's of soil/sand etc to buy, figure out roughly how many cm of depth you want, then there is a simple equation:

Tank length x tank width x desired substrate depth /1000

I'll give you an example for a standard ADA 60P tank (60x30x36) with an average of 8cm of substrate front to back.

60x3x8 = 14,400 /1000 = 14.4KG of soil

Hope that helps a wee bit.
 
Maf 2500 said:
That is probably fairly accurate for porous clay based aquasoils and the like, but for sand I believe you would have to multiply the answer by a factor of 1.5-1.6 to allow for the greater density of sand.
Click to expand...

That’s a good point and something I didn’t take into consideration 🙂
 
I don't think nutribase is a very good idea. It doesn't have any macros other than potassium as far as I can tell, though they won't actually share the composition. Very dodgy.

MD makes some cool projects, but he's sponsored by all these snake oil salesmen. API with their horrible fert and useless root tabs, Colombo (nutribase)... I suspect his success is more to do with the pond soil he adds than anything else. He will also break down the tank before the soil has a chance to deplete so the api fert lacking most useful nutrients won't become an issue.

I've had great success with a layered approach. Lava rock or something porous to add volume, tropica substrate (not aquasoil), though pond soil would work just as well I assume, optional aquasoil then a thick sand cap. Having lots of macros in the substrate means you don't have to fertilise much, which helps a lot with algae in low tech.
 
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