[itsBT]

Hey all,
Long time lurker, first time posting.
I've been in the planted tank hobby for a while now and decided to experient with an outdoor patio pond. I intended to have it as planted as possible (i want to see my Lotus plant flower) with maybe a few minnows.
I have almost completed my build and now I got to decide if want substrate or not. I have a small amount of ADA Amazonia that I was going to put in and cap it off with some gravel but now having second guesses wether it will cause more algae issues or not. Any tips or suggestions? Should I not bother with an active substrate? Do plants grow in winter at all? 😅
It will have a biological filter and is only on the sun from morning to midday?
Thanks in advance.

 

[reddhawkk]

I don't use substrate in mine. Instead I use pots and put the plants in there. Check out Rachael O'Leary's youtube channel. Go to her channel's home page, she has all of her summer tubing videos in one spot. Check them out for how she plants her plants.
I suppose plants will grow in winter depending on where you live. Where I live they don't. I only have non-tropical water lilies, which I bring in during the winter. No, they don't grow, they are inside a black plastic garbage bag waiting for next spring! I do put other fish tank plants out in the tubs but they also come in during the winter and live in tanks.

 

[itsBT]

I don't use substrate in mine. Instead I use pots and put the plants in there. Check out Rachael O'Leary's youtube channel. Go to her channel's home page, she has all of her summer tubing videos in one spot. Check them out for how she plants her plants.
I suppose plants will grow in winter depending on where you live. Where I live they don't. I only have non-tropical water lilies, which I bring in during the winter. No, they don't grow, they are inside a black plastic garbage bag waiting for next spring! I do put other fish tank plants out in the tubs but they also come in during the winter and live in tanks.

Thank you for your response! Yeah I've been watching all her videos as many others including aqua pro. It's in one of his videos he used active substrate to grow a carpet of dwarf sag, was hoping to replicate the same too. I've noticed most people use pots but I find it unappealing.
I guess it might be best to wait till spring or summer in order to determine if plants work well or not in my pot.

 

[Bettatail]

I dug the holes, put in pond liner, fill with water and put back some hard clay soil that I dug out, work really well for the plants.