Substrate for planted Discus tank?

[puntific]

I've been reading a lot about substrates over at the Planted Tank forum. It seems that those folks like ADA's Aquasoil and also eco compete. Are these good choices for a discus tank? Would they be too dark for the bottom? What would be other good choices? Just to fend off a likely question, I don't plan on growing out discus in this tank...

Thanks,

puntific

[DiscusPunk]

Eco-Complete is a great substrate, that's what I use and my my plants do great in it. The only time you really wanna worry about a substrate being too dark is if you have discus with Pigeon Blood genes as they are prone to peppering to match the environment they are in. If you have a PB based discus most people go with pool filter sand since it's white or some people just keep it bare bottom. I only have one PB and I actually like his peppering so it doesn't bother me. I'm growing a carpet of baby tears over the substrate so you won't even see the black eco complete anymore. I plan on getting some different PB strains from Hans so hopefully that way with the baby tears carpet they won't pepper.
I also hear good things about Flourite, but I hear it takes a while to settle in the tank so I went with eco-complete. It doesn't take as long to settle in the water.
Hope that helps :)

[Elliots]

What does the Planted Tank forum say about pool filter sand and I think they are called root fertilizer tabs? How much is Eco Complete? Pool filter sand is 10-25 cents per pound. When the plants have used up the nutrients in the Eco Complete, what do you do with it? The dark Eco Complete makes it hard to find "Refuse" on the bottom of the tank when you clean it. I considered using Eco but I opted for pool filter sand for my Discus tank. If you are going to use Eco in a non-discus tank everything changes. I am not opposed to Eco I just think PFS is better for Discus.

[Orange Crush]

I have my plants either attatched to wood (java fern and anubias) or in terra cotta pots with Flourite. It is much easier to keep the tank and water clean enough for discus this way.

[Stuewart]

If I were you, I'd just do sand with root tabs. I do that on my 10 gallon and from what I've heard about using most 'plant substrates', they become messy when it time to replace them. You have to remember, the nutrients in the substrate and the root tabs will only last 6 months on average.. After that, its just a media for plants to take root. Depends on what kind of plants you want to keep mostly.. What kind of plants were you looking at keeping?

[pastry]

I just use sand I took from the beach. Cured it (10% bleach, 90% water; then flush with 100% water after several days). Then put it in and cycled the tank. I have amazon swords that go crazy in the tank along with lillies and val. I have anubias on wood. I guess it's the level of plant keeping you want to get to that we need to know (are you going for the "low effort/maintenance" approach like me; no CO2? Or are you going for CO2 and what not for some of those extremely awesome/perfect aquascapes?). Plus I think Stuewart nailed it when he's asked what plants you'd like to keep.

[Pickled_Herring]

If you use sand, or any substrate, you can always add additional fertilizer in the form of root tabs. Also clay balls or ice cubes with fertilizer secured in them can be pushed beneath the substrate.

[Len]

My experience with pool filter sand and plants wasn't that great. I had previously used flourite as the substrate and it was awesome. Too bad you weren't close or I'd give you the flourite I took out of my 77 when I did away with the plants. It kills me that it's just sitting there after it cost so much :(

[jimg]

My experience with pool filter sand and plants wasn't that great. I had previously used flourite as the substrate and it was awesome. Too bad you weren't close or I'd give you the flourite I took out of my 77 when I did away with the plants. It kills me that it's just sitting there after it cost so much :(+1 have buckets full but can't come around to throw it out!

[Bill63SG]

Using,I think its the Aqua soil,I know its not eco complete.I believe the color is Amazon,not too dark.Also dose once a week with excel's flourish after wc.75163

[pastry]

Sounds like pool sand doesn't work but here's sand from the SC coast. It's not "powdery" so maybe that allows more stuff to get to the roots... not sure though... never looked further into it since... well... it worked :) When I didn't live near a shoreline at one point in time, then I found similar at a LFS.
75164

[shawnhu]

+1 have buckets full but can't come around to throw it out!

Jim, I'll be more than happy to come visit :)

[jimg]

Jim, I'll be more than happy to come visit :) stop by shawn you can have it!

[Oscarsx]

If you are worried about discus peppering don't use eco-complete.. a very cheap and effective alternative would be using PFS (Pool Filter Sand). It works great, a lot of members over @ plantedtank.net use it.. only Issue is that the sand carries not one single vitamin for our plants, so using root tabs is a must.

[Oscarsx]

Just make sure you rinse and rise that stuff out, or else It would take days before settling down.. If you google it, there are a lot of DIYs on PFS, give it a shot.

[lipadj46]

The pfs around here is clean, never had to rinse. Play sand on the other hand is a waste

sent from an undisclosed location using morse code

[Oscarsx]

The pfs around here is clean, never had to rinse. Play sand on the other hand is a waste

sent from an undisclosed location using morse code

Lmao that tapatalk signature, and yea play sand is a big waste!

Sent from my DROID X2

[Stuewart]

I use sand in my tank and it's perfect. It looks a lot better than the dirt too, imo. Again, think about whether you want to buy very very expensive dirt that has nutrients in it, or cheap sand and do ferts. You WILL have to use fertilizers after 6 months no matter what you use though. The nutrients in anything will be depleted after a period of time. The dirt just costs a whole lot more, but does come with 6 months worth of ferts basically. Its mostly about preference of looks.. I've had no problems or bad experiences with sand in my 2 year running planted tank..