Best Substrate

[pkth]

I am looking to plant up my Discus tank before i buy my prospective occupants, just wondering which substrate people can recommend for planted aquaria?

I have been looking at 2 products in particular:
Seachem Flourite Black
Red Sea Flora Base

I am leaning towards Flora Base as it not only provides plant growth but buffers the water so PH is constant around 6.5-7 ideal i think for my Discus (not intending to breed so don't need really low PH)

Has anyone used Red Sea Flora Base and can offer any insights into it? Does it actually work well to buffer the PH?

Any other substrates on the market that are more suited to Discus? I would prefer a darker colour to contrast the bright colours of the Discus

Thanks
Paul

[ILLUSN]

flora base is great stuff, I've got some that 2 yrs old and the plant growth is still amazing.

flourite I'm not so keen on it seems to depleate after around 6 mths of HEAVY growth.

Eco Complete is also good, as is dulpa ground.

watch out with eco if you have pigion based fish as they tend to pepper up.

[BigDaddyAdo]

ADA...;)


Ado

[bartek]

ADA is also a good product. Plants love it and it buffers the PH down to suit Discus.

[XPLOSV]

ADA/Eco

as for Dupla ground I have 2 20L bucket for sale, bought too many. LOL

[pkth]

Hi,

So i ended up purchasing ADA Aqua Soil Ammazonia 18L of it, which was perfect for my tank, got about 6-7cm deep substrate at the back slowly coming down to about 4-5cm at the front.

The packaging says that the water may go cloudy but should clear up in a few hours, as of yet (bout 6hrs later) my water is still not 100% clear.

Is this normal? does it take longer than 2 hours to clear i have an internal + Fluval 205 on the tank so there is plenty of filtration.

What can i do to clear up the water?

There are no floating particles it is more just the colour of the water its a bit cloudy with a slight yellow tinge to it.

Is this the normal colour of the water produced when using the amazonia product?

Thanks for the help

[BigDaddyAdo]

A water change would help....It will settle down soon.


Ado

[TW]

With ADA tanks, it's best to do water changes every couple of days for the 1st 2 weeks, plus use carbon. Also, there is ammonia in ADA & this on it's own will cycle your tank. No need for cycling fish or prawns, etc. The ADA will give you your ammonia source to start the cycle.

[pkth]

Hey thanks guys for the advice especially TW as i woke up this morning and the tank was not in a good way fish were gasping did tests ammonia was at 4.0 so i have since done 2 50% water changes put carbon in the filter used some ammo lock and also stresscoat and bio booster to help the system re-cycle.

Its a pain as my tank was up and running for 6 months and i only wanted to change the substrate, also the aussie ADA site in the product description lists all the benefits but fails to tell anyone who buys the product that it contains ammonia. However after TW post i looked at the ADA website for japan (the main site) and it lists all the preventative measures one need to tank when using ADA substrate........maybe the Aus ADA site should look into this.

Hopefully my tank will be able to rebound better than ever and thank god i still haven't put my discus in yet.......(not happy ADA Aus)

Thanks again guys

[TW]

Yeah, I mainly got this info from US hobbyists on another forum, that use ADA. I didn't realise your tank was already cycled, with fish in it. I've only ever used ADA from initial setup. Definitely, they should tell us this stuff on the package / site.

Once you get past these settling in issues, I hope you will be happy with it in the end.

cheers, Robyn

[Xtreme]

WOW

What a pain in the ass ADA must be (glad i dont use it) :D
I would be pissed if that was my tank
Dont know anyother substrate that gives you ammonia spikes like that :roll:

Hope all ends well for you

[TW]

Depends on the situation. When it's a new tank, it was a really welcome surprise to find I didn't need to use a prawn to do a fishless cylce. I started off using prawns to cycle with, which quickly got smelly & looked a mess. When others told me I didn't need an external source of ammonia with ADA, I gladly got rid of the prawn.

But knowing what I know of ADA now, I certainly wouldn't put it in a tank with fish already in the tank - only for new set ups.

The main problem is that we aren't told up front, when this is an important thing to know :x

[spaceman1979]

I've heard that zeolite is a good substrate because it absorbs ammonia and buffers the water.

Anyone used it or can comment on it?

[spaceman1979]

ummm...disregard.

A classic example here folks of not using the search function.