The perfect substrate

[frosties]

I do not think there is such a thing as the perfect substrate, if there was then there would be only one option on the Market. If you look around, there must be 5 or 6 basic types such as gravels, soils, sands etc. Then within these categories there are hundreds of options. So I have decided to have a bash at taking the best from each I have easy access to.

I have access to all the dupla and hobby range, but I also have plain gravel. I have decided to do a complete stripdown of my jewel tank,  and I am purchasing something quite smart - the dupla computer which controls pH, co2, substrate heating or cooling and finally lighting. This may arrive next week and I will keep you all informed. So back to the topic, substrates.

I spoke to dupla last week about the vulcanit stix. It seems it is made from the riverbed and flood plains from Sri Lanka. The product is only available for certain periods of the year as well. So I asked them if the product is available loose? And today it landed, 20kg of vulcanit in a loose form! The first ever request of this type world wide! Now the problem with this is that after a period of time (to be determined) this will compact worse than sand as it is afterall dried clay deposits and sand mixes! So I need to vary the grain size! But how to do this, so I intend to add to it some dupla ground, and I managed to get a 20l tub of it which is massive!
I also intend to mix in some of the Dorset gravel, although this will be done in a trial mix until I get a decent balance between gravel, soil and dupla ground.
But what is ground? Does it break down? Easy, ask the question and the answer will be forthcoming. It is apparently a balled version of hard baked laterite! This will eventually breakdown in the water, returning to a dust type of form. It seems that this will then release oxygen into the substrate as well when it breaks down so this is a good thing! 

My theory is this; by adding the gravel and laterite to the vulcanit, I will create an iron laden supercharged fertile substrate. This will have varying grain size and as such will not compact too much. Further to this the ground will allow water to penetrate deep into the substrate, where it will be heated and create convection currents across the entire substrate!

Thus substrate will also support many different plant types as well. Small fine rooted plants such as ashy pipewort and dwarf hairgrass should be able to get a grip in the vulcanit, whereas the larger rooted plants such as swords should get a grip round the gravel! This should be a good supercharged plan.

Oh, I also forgot, the top and bottom dress substrate! I intend to sit this lot on top of a few peat blocks which will give the effect of water softening and also lower the pH. But finally I intend to top dress this with humin Fraser and also humin superaktiv. This will then also support he lowering of the pH and really lower the pH. It will also add in humanic acids into the water which have been proven to really stimulate spawning from fish such as tetras!

So the final thing to do is ask for comments on the idea, but also to ask for planting suggestions! Feel free to make recommendations and be critical.

[nelson]

i've not seen any dupla stuff but what you're going to do sounds very messy.
i reckon if you plant it and leave it you will probably get great growth.
but if you pull plants out and put more in then it could be a mess.
i also think most plant substates turn to mud eventually anyway.

[frosties]

Yes agreed nelson, the vulcanit is messy when wet, but you are right, pulling plants out will result ina mud swarm from hell. As for planting, this has to be one of those one shot attempts. I have been reading the tropics guide to planting again and they mention when planting in silt type of substrates it is beat to plant with a third of the tank volume of water, then leave to settle again before adding more water. They also suggest not pulling plants out, but to dig them out!

This has to be one of those experimental sessions.

[nelson]

i think Luis is going to make his own substrate with clay etc and get it baked in a kiln.

[frosties]

I know he is already doing it for his wabi kusa.

[discusturkguy]

i think this is one of the main problems with planting a aquarium has i often read about putting fast growing plants in first and then replacing them further down the line with the chosen ones you require. and often see the same result from pulling plants out even with using plain washed gravel has we all know there will be some form of nutrients and debris collected over a period of time. but if you can manage to get the arrangemnt spot on first time then disturbance should be minimal but i think it is still going to be tough to acheive a good layout without some form of rearrangement at some point 

[ghostsword]

i think Luis is going to make his own substrate with clay etc and get it baked in a kiln.

I got the clay and the nutrients, and found that my wife's school has a large kiln, so I will have a go at making my own substrate. :)

The issue with vulcanit (I got some), the Tropica Aquacare and anything that has clay that has not been cooked, will make a mess as soon as you uproot plants, and the silt will deposit on plants and fish.

I got Tropica Aquacare on my tank and it is topped up with sand, but even the Corys are able to dig pieces out.

If my substrate remains solid, ie, does not turn to mud, I will be making lots of it for my main tank.

I made a Wabi substrate to use on my 15cm tall acrylic tray, and so far so good, it is mixed with Tropica Aquacare, coco coir and some spagnum moss, done 12kg of it. Currently I got about £50 of Hygros growing there, 30% melted due to the dry air, but the rest seem to have taken to it. I am using EI water from the main tank to spray them twice daily and I am making an acrylic hood for the tray, to see if I can move my emersed Java Fern windelov and anubias to it.

[ghostsword]

i think this is one of the main problems with planting a aquarium has i often read about putting fast growing plants in first and then replacing them further down the line with the chosen ones you require. and often see the same result from pulling plants out even with using plain washed gravel has we all know there will be some form of nutrients and debris collected over a period of time. but if you can manage to get the arrangemnt spot on first time then disturbance should be minimal but i think it is still going to be tough to acheive a good layout without some form of rearrangement at some point 

With EI, most plants can be even placed on pots with rockwool, the substrate is not that relevant. I got crypts and amazon swords to grow great on pots, easier to move about, but not so pretty to keep.

The substrate turning to mud is nasty thing to have on a tank, and can actually be very bad for the plants and fish.

[discusturkguy]

good point ghostsword have seen a few tanks that have the plants in pots and admit it doesn`t has nice but the advantage is like you said the ease with being able to move them around.

[frosties]

And on with the project. Tue substrates above should really knock the pH of the water down a bit, and I think potentially as far as pH6 or 6.2. Please note I will be starting with a 50:50 mix of ro water as well so I will have pH neutral to pH 6.8 water to start with.

So then I add fertilisers which again will drop the pH along with adding CO2 so a heavily acidic water! 

Now comes the hardscape. Today I managed to source some green granite. This cost £30 but there must be a good 35 to 40kg. This product (on research) is ever so slightly alkaline. This will have very little effect on the water column so we may have to watch this as the water will also be very soft!

So onto the plants. I have ordered 100 bunches of dwarf hairgrass and 15 bunches of dwarf sag. This is supplemented by 4 or 5 nymphae zenkeri from the nursery and also one echinodorous Rubin narrow. Finally I have also ordered 150g of weeping moss. Not sure how much that will be so there could be a load going up for sale!

I am undecided if that is enough plants. I may supplement the list with some rotala wallichii or green rotala indica which I saw the other day.

The layout is drawn in principal, I even have a photo mock up at the garden centre where I got the stone. They thought we were acting weird today when in the rain we started standing rocks on a bench and looking at them from every angle.

Filtration is going to be via an eheim 2228, for a 240l tank this is marginal to low filtration so this has to be supplemented. I have a fluval u4 which I am hoping I can hide. But I also have my sunsun korilla copy which will move 6000lph. So water movement is covered.

Finally fauna.
I will be housing the new bulldogs in there (4) along with some corys (6) then finally some cardinals which I have yet to order. I am thinking of a school of about 40 to 60 of them. These may be changed to another tetra when I get round to ordering them. We shall see.

[nelson]

I even have a photo mock up at the garden centre where I got the stone. They thought we were acting weird today when in the rain we started standing rocks on a bench and looking at them from every angle.

lol.....that made me laugh  .

[frosties]

At last I think is time to give an update. This week due to the snow, I decided to get on with the experiment and see what happens.  So the tank was stripped, cleaned inside and out.
The first thing I did was to attach a blue background to the tank. This I did using the hobby / dupla fotofix product. It contains 50ml of solution and a squeegee. I followed the instructions with one exception - I did not lay the tank over onto it's face. This is an old tank and I think that it may have cracked it. However I am really pleased to report that this is a really easy product to use and it works well.

Next came the peat blocks. 3 of them in total. Laid them out near the back of the tank. Then I poured the vulcanit all over them and also part of the tank base. Next I added the humin Fraser and the humin superaktive. I do not rate the humin Fraser as it looked just like dry peat, so a bit disappointed. The superaktiv was brilliant. Little black pellets of highly compressed and concentrated peat.
Next came laterite pellets! 500g of them in total. I just sprinkled them all over the base of the tank. Finally added the 20l of ground! Note I did not wash anything at all.
I added about a third of water gently, using a spray on a hose. I placed the rock as close to the garden centre layout. Then started planting. In this tank I added 60 bunches of dwarf hairgrass, 10 bunches of dwarf sag (youngsters) and also a bunch of polysperma plus 2 bunches of a. Lilacina.
I then topped up the tank and put the heaters on. When the water reached 18c I engaged the new sunsun powerheads (korilla copies £9.99 +2.99postage on eBay) they really move the water at 6000 lph. I was worried it would be too much but so far it is not bad at all. The main filter was not touched at all. This had live bacteria in it so would speed up the cycle 10fold. Sure enough the following day, amonia and all readings at zero following a brief amonia spike!
So by now the water was hovering at 25.5c and the fish went back in. They were obviously stressed as the discus bars are showing, the rummys and other tetras lost their colour. But today, I decided it was time to change the filter floss. I noticed all the fish had coloured up again. I also noticed that some plants were floating but they were soon replanted.

Now I need to do a review. The only issue I have is that the substrate is light. Therefore it is mega easy for plants to work their way out of the substrate. However it is all rounded and with that, the corys love it. I have never seen them burrow before and now they literally dig and attempt the great escape! Brilliant.








So I need to do a water test tomorrow, I have chosen granite stone for a reason and this is that it will jot alter the water pH so we can then see the effect of the substrate. I personally expect it down about 6.2. It this is correct, then the water is ideal for plants and it should really take off. 

[nelson]

that hairgrass is going to look amazing  .

[Gfish]

Loos like an excellent start Tony. I'm not used to all this substrate lark lol :-)

The stones look really good, I love their colour against the plants andsubstrate.

Is this a 4ft or a  5ft tank?

Gavin

[frosties]

that hairgrass is going to look amazing  .

I hope so Neil, I currently hope that enough will take hold to actually carpet. Due to the substrate being so light, trimming it is gonna be an absolute nightmare.

Loos like an excellent start Tony. I'm not used to all this substrate lark lol :-)

The stones look really good, I love their colour against the plants andsubstrate.

Is this a 4ft or a  5ft tank?

Gavin

Thanks Gavin, this is a 4 foot tank so only a baby really. The green granite really does clash with the brown dupla ground. Soon (I hope) the hairgrass willtake over so you would not really see the substrate.