Substrate of Choice

I've messed with several different substrates. SMS, Schultz, Playsand, Eco complete, aquasoil, mixtures of them all...

I like larger to mid grained sandy substrates. Mainly for looks and ease of planting stems. I've really gotten fond of mixing Eco Complete with aquasoil. This mix is great for planting tiny stem plants such as glosso and HC.

Aquaclay, if you ask me.

For me, substrate color is important, and I want black or near black. I also want something with small enough grain size and enough weight to make planting easy. So, for now, I want Flourite Black Sand. But, I think it is best to have a nutrient rich layer under that, such as Leonardite or river silt.

Next year I will bet that my favorite will be something else!

I will always use ADA Aquasoil (original). My second choice would be Eco-complete, again the older stuff. Looks like the newer stuff has a lot of red in it. I know this stuff is harvested but geeze, it looks awful now.

My substrate of choice is "pool filter sand". Why? Because it is cheap, require no rinsing, easy to work with/plant in, does a good job at holding plants in place and most importantly does not alter water parameters.

I really think people put too much emphasis on using specialty plant substrates. There is much more important factors in growing plants, like:lights, C02 injection & fertilization.

I have only used SMS, Sand, Aquasoil. I could grow plants fine in SMS and Sand. Aquasoil just did it better for me. Probably because I often forgot to fertilize when I got busy and the aquasoil seemed to give me a bigger buffer for error. With SMS my tank was much more sensitive.

I did start out with SMS and sand so I don't know how Eco or the Red Sea stuff compares.

They will all grow plants. I have been converted to Original Aquasoil by how its worked in my last two tanks. But that just anecdotal evidence.

I use floramax, and laterite and the plants is going well, sometimes I use root tabs but with the liquid fertilizer is suficient to all my plants

I use eco complete. It is pretty good at growing plants, but I have heard really good things about the ADA Aquasoil...

Eco Complete....particularly when they ship it free to you

I have always been partial to ECO.
I have used Schultz Aquatic, SMS, Eco and AS.
I also have been able to grow anything I want in either of them, of course HC does best in AS powder, but just fine in AS and Eco, never tried it in the other two.

I do think that Eco has performed best for me but that is also because I have used it more then any other substrate, the tank I just set up was AS and PS, so we will see,

But I think Eco is the most natural looking of any of the soils and that is just as important to me.
As long as it performs, if it looks right, I will choose it over others, so the fact is, my first choice will always be ECO.

I have not seen the NEW stuff yet (eco that Roy is talking about) but have heard about it.
I was at Pets Inc this weekend and took a look, a friend said it was the old stuff again but he saw the new stuff.

Maybe (hopefully) the new batch is really a BAB batch, it has happened before and to Carib Sea's credit, they more then make up for it.

I like Eco and SMS, both work well for me. I have no problems growing in SMS, its a bit light. But its very inexpensive. You can add a nutrient rich layer underneath it and save loads of money. Eco looks better, I am however trying to get my hands on a pallet of black Seachem Flourite sand and black Flourite. Ive been waiting to see this stuff for some time now.

The latest barrreport do an interesting analysis of substrates and I was a bit stumped that plain sand mixed with potting soil was so good, so that is something I will test next time I setup a scape.

These were tested:

ADA aqua soil amazonia
Lake Tahoe sediment
Delta sediment (Owl Harbor
Sand and potting soil
Soil master select (charcoal)
Sand

Well I like doing it the traditional way for me, greek black humic forest soil with no additives mixed with lots of laterite (mined from a greek mine for nicel extraction) left in a container with water for as much as possible together with water changes (as many as possible) for 2-3 months. then I lay this on the bottom of the tank in a 2 cm layer, on top of this I place a plastic mesh with big holes 2-3 mm ones, and then I top this with neutral gravel thus the soil is pretty much trapped underneath the mesh, and it doesn't come out.
This kind of substrate tends to leach nutrients in the column for quite sometime (3 months maybe more) so I use activated carbon in the filter to extract as many leached stuff as possible, at the same time plants can have a really good start, specially grasses seem to really enjoy this addition and they grow really fast, I think you can never go wrong with rich substrate no matter what people say, it is a very good buffer for the initial mistakes but patince is required with algae in the beggining, and lots of water changes, but at the end algae will surely go and I end with a sparkling healthy tank in which the substrate will keep it's strength for at least 3 years.

the planted substrates i have experience with are:

eco-complete; i got great growth with eco. the only bad thing about it was my fault. i mixed gravel with it and it became unsightly when it eventually rose to the top. so i ended up swapping out substrates.

aqua soil w/ps; so many ppl rave about it so i'm giving it a shot. i did hear stories about ps rising to the top so i put something to seperate the two substrates (something like a vinyl mesh screen). i really dont feel like sifting thru all the aqua soil to get ps out.
so far, blyxa japonica looks great (took about 2-3 weeks though to start new growth), but my dwarf hair grass has yet to take off. *about 5 weeks now its been in the tank.

substrate color, size and shape really matters to me.
anything but something dark is a turn off. also, i prefer substrates with softer edges. ie sand/aqua soil. flourite/sms looks very jagged in pictures online so i've steered away from those. i'm sure i'll be fine with the aqua soil... but i'll be happier once my hairgrass carpet fills in.

I use a base of peat with a layer of onyx sand and laterite on top of that. Then a layer of SMS to achieve just under an 1"+ of a base (basic cheap filler). Then on top of that I use a 50/50 mix of SMS and EC. I mix in the EC to make the SMS a little more compact and easier to hold plants until they root.

I tried ADA soil once and wasn't impressed and was more t'd off about my water always having a yellowish tint I tore the tank down in less then three months and started over. Easy guess would be I'll never use it again.

Im going to use Eco complete because the poll have the eco in second choise.