Turface?

i think some people use it, but not really sure on how good it is though. i never used it myself

Lets hope we get some opinions.

So if you were going to do a simple system (basically just medium light no co2 no ferts nothing...) what sort of substrate would you use? Thanks

Turface is an inert substrate, no nutritional value for plant roots. I have used it before with mineralized soil and had great results. Turface by itself is fairly light and plants could easily get pulled up by fish until roots are established. You could supplement with root tabs and not have to worry about dosing ferts in the water.

I heard that it is very high in iron content...this doesnt have to be much...just someplace to stash and hold plants that I trim instead of tossing them...going to get a bulb for this tank tonightt.

I will second Seattle_Aquarist's opinion of Turface.

It's very porous. When saturated, it's specific gravity is probably only 1.2 or 1.3. That's nowhere near as dense as gravel, so initially it can be a challenge to keep newly planted stems anchored. But they soon grow extensive root systems.

It has a monstrously high CEC, so at first it greedily adsorbes nutrients out of the water column. But once it's in a rough equilibrium, it provides a very effective nutrient reservoir.

My understanding us that the gray variety shown in his photos is no longer being produced, although apparently some folks can still find it. I have the other color. Most of the grains are a deep tan; a few have overtones of red, and others are shades of gray. The overall color variablitiy is very much like that of his photos, although obviously the color balance would be vastly different.

Compared to the various alternatives, is it attractive? That's subjective. But I like it.

i am also using turface with great results... i do not use root tabs only dose the water column... the only downside like has been stated before is that it is very light, plants with unestablished root systems in this substrate can easily be uprooted...

it comes in a few colors and i am using red... i like the look. it really looks more brown than red

There wont be much in the way of fish...just an oto cat or two to keep algae down...remember for me its just a grow out tank...

Would you suggest soaking it in h2o for awhile? Maybe dosed with something? I have read that people like to soak it in nutriets.

just rinse. good stuff.

Thanks guys...I will throw up some pics when it is all set up and running.

Would you be soaking it simply to saturate it? Or to rinse away the dust? Or to preload it with nutrients?

It becomes pretty well waterlogged very quickly. And the consensus seems to be that there's no particular value to rinsing -- after a few hours of filtration, the fine particles are out of the water column -- but that it deosn't hurt either, unless you want to preload it.

In which case you would dump dry, unrinsed Turface into a solution of the nutrients that you wanted it to adsorb. That way it should take up a lot more of them.

I like to rinse Turface off to take away the dust. You don't 'have' to, but I found if I didn't, most of this gunked up the filter in a few days and I just had to clean the filter faster. But, it's really just a preference.

i agree w/ sewingalot.