[PlantedTankLover]

I have an empty 125 that I had cichlids in and thinking of turning it in to a simple low tech planted. I have some huge pieces of holey rock with big deep holes that so not go all the way through so I could stuff them with substrait. Question is, and holey rock be used? My water is already hard out of the tap.

 

[secuono]

I had all sorts of rocks in my planted tanks. No issues.

 

[PlantedRich]

In my water, definitely! But then before we say yes to all the tanks that folks might be building, it is worth noting that rocks can change the water. If you start with High PH and lots of hardness, limestone rocks are not likely to change it. Like adding black ink to black paint? But if you have acidic water with little hardness, you will often see a noticeable change over time. Sometimes we see people who put rocks in and find dramatic changes overnight. What they may be missing is that there was a lot of loose material like dust on the rock surface. Limestone dust makes an overnight change but it take much longer if you start with a clean solid rock. Rocks rarely dissolve overnight!

And even in the worst case, I find no trouble with hard water and plants.

 

[someoldguy]

Why not ??? When you had the tank set up for cichlids, did the rocks alter your water chemistry at all? If they didn't , use 'em , all those holes could lend themselves to some really interesting plantings .