Aqua Earth Substrate?

[Chimera]

Hey all,

I’m setting up a new tank in Tasmania, Australia. I’ve had planted tanks many years ago in Sydney. To say the selection of equipment and plants here is limited, would be generous. While I can get lighting and filtration online, substrate is proving difficult. I’m going for a 90P (if I can get a low iron glass one here) so I need enough substrate to do the job. My options would be inert sand/gravel with root tabs or try an aqua soil of some variety. The only thing I can find locally to avoid huge shipping costs is Aqua Earth - which is stocked by a local fish supplier at about $60 AUD/6L.


Has anyone used this product before or have any reviews?

This tank is planned to have a few stem plants, various crypts, tiger lotus and hopefully a small carpet area of Monte Carlo or Marsilea and some pygmy chain swords (echinodorus).

Cheers
Chimera

 

[snowballs99]

Never tried the product, but you can probably trust his name/credibility since he would design it for aquascaping.
Your tiger lotus will probably eat up all the ammonia in the soil in like 2-3 months anyways, those things seem to get extremely tank-wide root systems. The leaves do get absolutely get massive when they have access to ammonia as well.

 

[Chimera]

Yeah I found crypts to be the same. As I am not keen on ripping it down in 12 months, perhaps I should stick to an inert substrate with root tabs and then sort out a good water column fert regime.

 

[Dennis Wong]

Also always remember, that when it comes to growing aquatic plants, investing in a CO2 system will beat spending money on expensive substrates if you don't already have CO2 injection system.

 

[Chimera]

Also always remember, that when it comes to growing aquatic plants, investing in a CO2 system will beat spending money on expensive substrates if you don't already have CO2 injection system.

Very true Dennis.
I had pressurised CO2 back in 2008 so I will certainly be getting it for this setup. Fortunately regulators and solenoids etc can be purchased online and here in Tasmania we don’t have aquarium shops but we do have BEER which means beverage grade CO2 is easy to come by.
I’ll be setting up a yugang reactor this time after discovering them here on scapecrunch this week!

 

[BenB]

If you decide to go with the substrate, I'd love for you to post back about your experience.
It's always great to hear about different products.
Shipping can be rough here in the states for substrate also since it's so heavy. Luckily, I have 15L of APT Feast waiting for whenever I get the courage to reset my tank. I bought it before shipping went up a few months back.