New sand substrate.

Chris7

Well I finally changed one of my 10 gallon tanks over to a sand substrate, I'am just wondering if the plant will grow properly in the sand as in the gravel? It looks so good I plan on changing over my other 2 tanks in the next while. Here's a pic.

Attached Images

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SusanB

That looks great!

Chris7

To explain my self better, I'am more worried about the compaction issue? I went to home depot and tryed to get some pool filter sand, but they had non! So I went with Quikrete playsand, I made it about 2'' deep? Will I have any problems with my plants? I give them a liquid fertilizer once a week.

Boredomb

No 2" is fine and I use the same sand with no problems. In places I have had it 3" but I had swords and vallisneria in those places. If you are really worried about the compacting issue then go get some Malaysian trumpet snails. The burrow through the sand.

cwmorrow

Great looking tank.

I use sand with plant tablet fertilizer. I've noticed no problems with compaction.
I've just begun using a liquid fertilizer, so I cannot yet report on how plants do with it.

William T. Innes, writing seventy years ago, insisted that fish fertilize the plants.

I believe pool filter sand has larger grains than playsand. It seems to we that plants are easier to place with playsand. Lots more washing is needed than with pool filter sand, though.

1077

Sand you have will be fine.
I might consider some root tab's under the sword plant's along with the liquid fertilizer.
Maybe have two of the sword plant's share one root tab, for those planted close together.
At depth of no more than two inches,, I would not worry bout compaction, but would see that the swordplant's are kept from getting out of hand, and robbing nutrient's from other slower growing rooted plant's near by.
Sword plant's I have kept ,send out extensive root's, and I pull them up around every six month's and trim back the root's by about half ,to prevent them from growing too dense.