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heya,

I've just bought a larger tank which I want to make a planted tank. I'll be transferring over my fish some of which are dwarf cories. Could you please let me know if any of you have had experience with the dwarfs and any other type of substrate other than sand?

I'll need the planted substrate for the plants and am thinking that if I put sand on top it'll just fall between the gaps over time, so thinking that the ADA powder substrate could be good for them as that is the finest substrate I've found so far.

Thanks

Why would you not use sand - and nothing more?

I got tanks with this substrate being overgrown with sagittaria - a plant needing a firm sil, books tell us - and you still can add some peat or clay or whatever to the sand

You could also use soft pebbles to hold and the just round silica sand (not 'sharp' sand) as Bas Pels suggested. So far I've had no problem growing all kinds of fine rooted or thick aggressive rooted plants in fine sand. I sometimes use pebbles to initially hold the plant down while I fill up the rest of the tank.

Dwarf cories, that's C. pygmaeus?

If so they're tiny fish which don't do a lot of digging, you can pretty much use any substrate you want.

You can also try Seachem's Onyx sand. Keep in mind that it buffers the pH a bit though so if your water is already alkaline, the ADA would be better. The ADA stuff will release ammonia when new though, so it's best to plant without fish for a month or so. That's what all the local shrimp keepers who use ADA do.

lstratton wrote:heya,

I've just bought a larger tank which I want to make a planted tank. I'll be transferring over my fish some of which are dwarf cories. Could you please let me know if any of you have had experience with the dwarfs and any other type of substrate other than sand?

I'll need the planted substrate for the plants and am thinking that if I put sand on top it'll just fall between the gaps over time, so thinking that the ADA powder substrate could be good for them as that is the finest substrate I've found so far.

Thanks

I'm in the same situation right now and I'm looking at two possibilities. I've got an ample supply of Eco-Complete. I'm going to try sifting it down and only using the small, sand-sized portion. However, I'm afraid that material will still be jagged. If that doesn't work out I'm going to use "Mineralized Top Soil" and cap that with around 1.5" of pool filter sand. I'm planning on using soil from around my place, but I read that it works with bagged top soils as well. Google mineralized top soil to read what those experienced with it say. This will certainly be much cheaper, but I would much rather have a black (or at least dark) substrate. Either way, the point of "plant" substrates is to hold nutrients. The Eco, fluorite, etc. contain few nutrients. The top soil will contain more but will eventually be depleted. The advantage with these is that unlike inert sand or gravel the will hold nutrients that you add. You can overcome this using those inert substrates with the addition of "root tab" type fertilizers.

Also, you are correct that the smaller particles will migrate to the bottom of the tank, especially with fish, say corydoras, digging through it all the time.