What Substrate To Use ?
- Thread starter Venom
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Oolitic sand. Calcium carbonate or aragonite to buffer hardness and pH, nice little round balls so no nasty sharp edes to tear mouths, small size means dirt sits on top rather than sinks in.
I don't know a cheap source in the US, but the reef people would know.
And pretty similar to sand substrates in malawi
I don't know a cheap source in the US, but the reef people would know.
And pretty similar to sand substrates in malawi
pool filter sand, playground sand, southdown playground sand, and there are LFS type sands (silica) that you can get into too. There are many reasons for each sand, and alot more sands, go over to http://www.cichlid-forum.com and do a search there, many many discussions about all kinds of sands.
Yeah, lake malawi is pretty boring, white sand, in some places small round rocks. chinuni in mozambique would be the best place to replicate in an aquarium in my opinion. Natural gravel, river pebbles, and good sized round rocks would be a great tank.
generally a natural, small grained gravel like amishfignewton suggested. and lots of rocks. big rocks, grey rocks, dark red etc.
One of these days I'll get around to posting pics of my diving in the lake and you can see what the lake really looks like underwater.
generally a natural, small grained gravel like amishfignewton suggested. and lots of rocks. big rocks, grey rocks, dark red etc.
One of these days I'll get around to posting pics of my diving in the lake and you can see what the lake really looks like underwater.
from what i hear, yes. on another forum people were talking about the "medium" grade sand at home depot, so i think so.
i have used crushed coral, aragonite, and this sand and i think that this sand is the best--by far. the "buffering" capacity of substrates is overated IMO, especially if your ph is relatively high to begin with. mine is 7.8 kh--10
and personally, i really dont like objects in my tanks to mess with my ph! however, i have found that these calcite-rich substrates dont do much (if anything) to my water anyway, so if someone really likes them i dont think there are any problems with them.
i have used crushed coral, aragonite, and this sand and i think that this sand is the best--by far. the "buffering" capacity of substrates is overated IMO, especially if your ph is relatively high to begin with. mine is 7.8 kh--10
and personally, i really dont like objects in my tanks to mess with my ph! however, i have found that these calcite-rich substrates dont do much (if anything) to my water anyway, so if someone really likes them i dont think there are any problems with them.