Tezak

I just put my aquarium substrate together last night and filled the tank with water. It's a 50 gallon tank and I used 1 bag of Black Flourite (about a 1/2 inch of cover on the bottom of the tank), with 2 bags of fine gravel on top. This is was the person at the aquarium store recommended to me but after reading here I'm doubtful that it will be good enough for a nice planted aquarium.

Will most plants do fine in that or should I avoid certain plants, and do I need to add any extra nutrients to the water to compensate?

bradac56

That mix should be ok as long as it's not deeper than 3 inches at any spot in the tank.

Unless your only going to plant the most basic low light plants (Java Moss/Fern, Anubis, etc) you will need to add some sort of fertilizer.

A few popular methods are the line of Seachem Macro and Micro liquids, Pfertz.com Micro and Macro ferts (my favoite of the named brand stuff) or dry ferts which will save you the most money but take a bit more time to prepare.

A good source for dry ferts are aquariumfertilizer.com or greenleafaquariums.com and you would need to buy the basics:

KNO3
KH2PO4
Trace mix (CSM+B or pfertz.com's "M")
Gh booster (for after water changes only)

For dosing schemes you could use PPS-Pro or EI.

- Brad

Tezak

Excellent! Thanks for the thorough response!

armedbiggiet

that setup sounds okay to me, it just you could use either one along and I think you would get the same growing result.

Diana K

I would have gone with a deeper layer of plant substrate and just barely enough gravel to stabilize the plants until they take root. Call it 1" planting material in the front, 2" in back or even deeper in mounds or hills, and a max of 1" of gravel, and I usually use much less.

Yes, fertilizers will be helpful, essentially you are planting in gravel.