[Amazonfish]

I've gone through previous threads, but I still have some questions. But first, a little bit of background.

I'm currently using sand as a substrate, but I'd like to get a nice slope and with sand, anaerobic pockets can form. I'd like to avoid that. So, I thought I might go with flourite as a substrate instead.

I've had flourite before and since it wasn't a planted tank, I vacuumed the substrate all the way to the bottom every week. I suppose you can't do that with a planted tank... Is that a problem? I'd think that lots of poo would collect underneath the substrate. Is that a bad thing?

Also, due to the grain size, is it tough to plant small things in flourite? I want a carpet of HC, and that stuff is a pain to plant, even in sand.

 

[lauraleellbp]

Flourite would work. You could get Flourite black sand if you want a smaller substrate for HC.

I've never had issues getting carpet plants to root in regular Flourite, though, unless I had fish in the tank already.

 

[jmhart]

No need to vacuum the substrate, in fact, better not too. All that poo, or mulm as we like to call it, is GREAT for plants. If you end up with lot of plant debris on top of the flourite, you can skim the surface with your gravel vac, but no need to really deep clean.

Like Laua Lee said, Flourite is more than an adequate substrate for growing HC. The only problem will come in if you've got cories, loaches, or other fish that like to dig. Until the HC gets rooted, no substrate can protect from those guys.

 

[Amazonfish]

Great! Thanks for the info