I know that everyone seems to have their own ideas on what should be used as a 'base' for a substrate (potting soil, palm peat fibre, etc) for a planted tank. What I am needing some advice on, is what to cap your 'base' with? I keep cories and therefore need a fine substrate. I was thinking of using river sand. Will this be fine for a planted tank, or would it be too fine? TIA
Well in my experience, river sand is ok. It starts to become a problem if u use too much to cap ur bottom layer.. It starts to compact and rots the roots because of lack of air to the roots.. But a thin 2cm layer should be fine..river sand granuals are also more rounded due to erosion when pushed around by the river. So its corie friendly wont damage their barbs
I've used both pool filter sand and river sand, and find the pool filter sand much less messy - I found the river sand even with lots of washing to be too fine. I don't have corys though.
If you have corydoras (or any other fish that likes digging) in the tank, you can scratch the idea of a soil based substrate. Rather go the palm peat fibre and chemicult route, capped with pool filter sand.
