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This is the best pic I can get of the whole setup. The slick black acrylic doesn't show much detail. The front was open and I used a black acrylic sheet and plastic screws and made a door for it. It is a manufactured stand, I couldn't make that if my life depended on it...lol I used a level and the top and bottom of the stand are flat as far as I can tell so I guess it is the floor. I am going to get some shims and put them just snug where needed and call it a day. I feel like it will be fine. If anyone has anymore comments I welcome them and thanks to all that have replied so far. Ken

Shorter fins for their specific fin type (like a halfmoon female may still have longer fins than a plakat male. But a halfmoon female have much shorter fins compared to a halfmoon male), egg spot, rounder/bigger belly, beards. Females of long fin varieties can still have longer fins compared to plakats, whether males or females. My halfmoon male vs halfmoon female. She still has pretty long fins:

In some cases I dont quarantine at all (like the panda garra or hillstream loaches, cause I dont have a QT that would match the main tank parameters). TBH All I can quaranitne against is ich and fungus, as for any form of parasites we do not have the medicine, so. Anyways as I said, havent had ich since 10 years ago when I was keeping tanks for the first time and the sellers at the fair are carefull to sell healthy fish, and there is even a guarantee somewhere they are already quarantined, if they are from outside breeders, not the sellers themselves. Alas I was quite confident and so far, no issues. Thus why today was moving day. I have whole day to watch the fish in the tank, so decided to move the Pearl Gourami male to the (now cant call it that) South American tank, to the female that has been there a week now. It was adorable, right away they found each other, checked each other with feelers and have been together ever since. I hope the bliss lasts and not like the last time when he was mean. I took a short video. Excuse the floating debris, I honestly do not know what is the issue in the tank anymore to cause this. Thanks to no background in the video it is not so visible, but the male has really nice color, deep orange, and the female has a blue tint to the bottom fins Even the female before chose this spot, but he male too, this is above the filter output in the calmest part of the surface, on the right side of the tank. In the middle the leaves are, and on the left side, the hatchetfish are. So far so good, so please wish me luck these two work together well and with other fish too. Inspired by @Chick-In-Of-TheSea Snoopy pics I took one of my bolivian ram. They constantly spawn so it is on one hand a heartbreaking cycle. Almost every two weeks, they pair, the lay eggs, eggs hatch, wigglers wiggle, free swimming fry, and on day three or four, the other two b-rams eat these hatched b-rams against parents guarding. Every time...sad really. I love their community and social behavior, I think they may be happier than if I just had one b-ram, but the price.... As I was dropping the gourami to the tank with the net, I decided to net out some loose leaves on the surface and managed to scoop up my yellow male endler. I have three males, afaik, in this tank though I have only seen two in a while. I called it fate and dropped the endler to the cube, to the pygmy corydoras, to keep them company for a while. I assume if the corydoras start breeding he would be in the way, but I think I have few months before that, so for now he can stay there . Onto my clown killifish tank, I am seeing the fry more (since it is larger) and to my pleasant surprise, there are at leas two of similar sizes! They are like grain of rice, but roundish, and they full on look like bumblebees, little round black and yellow things. Absolutely adorable. The helena here also looks good, it is not burried at all most of the time, it is actively going through the tank. I find it very nice looking. Especially the killer snout. Regarding my asian tank, all three sewellia are now active and visible most of the time. I am feeding them a smidge more, mangold leaf here, cucumber there, algae waffer at lights out. I plan to feed every other day as it may have been feeding in the past that was my problem. I keep expecting the algae covered stnes to be their primary food source, but I may be wrong. I also finally put the airstone on a timer, so I dont have to manually unplug it and plug it back in.

This shows the difference between Kat’s Aquatics calcium vs competitor calcium. I asked the guy, what’s so bad about phosphates? He said phosphates = algae probs. Noted! A pepper grinder with fish food! They sell several varieties. Dr. Tim’s products are worth another look. They have a bunch of media to help with various tank issues. Also a gel food that doesn’t turn to mush in the tank. You put in a block; it stays as a block. Seaweed-based binder vs gelatin. But some cons: must be kept frozen. Once prepared, can only freeze 1 week. Once in tank, must be removed in 2-3 hours. I won full size bottles of Prime and Stability. This is tank safe: corydoras re: The paludarium in the video. BiOrb has similar with built in light and mister, and they are pretty slick! They are not marketed for animal use but they sure are cool for plants. The bottom of the biOrb will detect dryness and inform the top of the biOrb to put out mist. Also these products are built with such ventilation to regulate humidity as well as keep the glass clear for viewing. I had grandiose plans to see speakers. I never saw any! There was too much going on, and a lot of ground to cover! We even forgot to eat, until about 2:30 when we realized our tummies were grumbling loudly. We were living off the Halloween candy that practically every vendor booth had available! 🤣 We didn’t get to all the booths, but we believe we got to all the freshwater ones at least, skipping some saltwater things as the event closed for the day. Speaking of saltwater, one booth had this pill bottle lookin thing with holes. It attaches to the side of the tank with magnets. You put frozen food in it, then you slide it down to the bottom with the magnets, and it allows the bottom feeders to eat the frozen food as it thaws. If you download the Fish Stream app it will notify you of the livestreams happening at the event today (today is the last day). I got to meet Joanna and Jason from Prime Time Aquatics, Dustin from Dustin's Fish Tanks, and the gal from Aquarium Info. She was so sweet! I also got to see MD Fish Tanks and Matt from Matt's Fish Room (they were on their way to a speaking engagement so I didn't get to meet or speak with them due to their "bouncer" with the big frown). What would you like to see next? 1. Who I adopted 2. Aquascaping contest

I am Ree from NW Oklahoma. I have been keeping fish for around 15 yrs. Just getting into planted tanks for around 7.

I starting to plan a 125 heavy planted community tank. I am going to stock fish that could work in a nano set up. What fish should I do if I want some passive breeding? any other advice is welcome

From time to time, you might want to routinely gravel vac out detritus if it's collecting (poop, uneaten food, decaying plant matter if you have live plants), even if your params look good. 10 gallons is not a large volume of water, so your params can change quickly if you have a build up of organics.

As your seeing improvement it's more than likely bacterial in nature it can take two full course back to back so I would follow up with a second course of maracyn2

@Guppysnail I made it through half the first page of replies, and so I don't know if my contributions here will help or not. If you're planning on "making" your water by adding tap water to your RO, then the DI stage isn't necessary. I have an Aquatic Life 50gpd system and I'm happy with it. I know a BRS system would be more robust. There are lots of add ons and parts that you can get via amazon to help control the budget. Eg replacement membranes and filters, etc. Some accessories I recommend are a dual inline TDS meter like this: and a RODI float valve kit like this one (from Aquatic Life, no less, but there are others): The float valve kit includes an additional piece of the puzzle which is the 4-port auto-shutoff "solenoid" (required because the float valve isn't powerful enough to shut off water coming into the system, so what it does is use the small amount of backpressure at the end of the system [where the float rises up] to power the closing off of the other half of the solenoid that is connected to the water coming into the system). Another useful add-on is a flush valve, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5CFco_Ceog it just requires a couple tees and a valve to install. With all these, you can make RO water into a bucket or tank or container of your choosing, without worrying about overflow or forgetting to turn it off, or whatever. One thing you will want to avoid (you mentioned earlier what questions you aren't asking 😛) is using the RO water right when you create it. It's not that it needs to sit, but it will come through your system very cold (esp in winter). Letting it sit/warm up overnight will let it come to room temp. Though this might be less of an issue if you are using tap water to mix your final product (since you can add warmer tap water to cold RO water to get the temp you need). Earlier in the thread, you were asking about the barrel/tank thingys. In the event this hasn't been answered... These take the place of a holding tank or bucket, as described above. Eg if you have a system under your sink, you don't want to wait for 2 minutes to fill a glass (because most systems have a pretty low output rate, eg my 50gpd system, if working optimally, would take about a minute to fill a cup, ie 1 cup liquid measure - no one has that time/patience). So those tanks hold 1-2 gallons only, and have a diaphragm that uses air pressure. The pressure in your tap and through the RO system fills the tank, and forces the diaphragm to move compressing the air inside. the tank. When you open the tap on the sink, the stored air pressure pushes water out. So I don't think that system/product/solution would be practical if you want more than a gallon or two available to use. Other questions: yes you should cut a tee into your incoming water before the water softener, and that can be your source. I use one of these, which you can splice into pex or copper piping:

@Guppysnail provided me some "San Francisco Strain" eggs (Thanks!) from brine shrimp direct and I've added them to the comparison. Here's the data: I apparently didn't gather data for the San Francisco _brand_ eggs. I found them expensive and hard to hatch. I estimated volume by computing a the volume of an ellipsoid. Obviously not a perfect measurement, but it gives some idea of their relative sizes in 3D. The San Francisco Variety shrimp are a bit shorter but also more variable than the normal BSD shrimp. The egg size for the SF variety are noticeably more variable. So, all in all: COOP eggs are easily the biggest and produce the biggest shrimp. Normal BSD eggs are more consistent than BSD SF. BSD SF are more variable, so there are probably some smaller shrimp in there. For now, I guess I'm sticking with COOP eggs, but I did notice that the BSD SF eggs seem to hatch pretty fast for me, so maybe I'll use them in emergencies.

Thanks. I'll check it out. 🙂

😂 I love the "bacopa isn't sure" mindset. @Chick-In-Of-TheSeahas a jar used for growing plants and it's done pretty well. It might be an interesting look to apart ideas or just to check out something cool, similar to what you were mentioning with the smaller projects. As for Val, they do have smaller forms, but I do think microsword is a good place and size for the smaller setups. Root tabs might help, same with the bacopa, depending on what your substrate it and those factors of course.

Babies are all full free swimming and all have bbs bellies today. So I moved them to a longer container. This one is clearer so easier to see their eyes and orange bellies

Here’s a new kid I adopted from Kat’s Aquatics at Aquashella

Ok excluding shrimp, which has its own chunk of photos from the contest, here are some of the non-fish animals of Aquashella. Danger noodles: Rat snek: Bearded dragon: Not pictured: parrots, bengal cats, owl (looked at bengal kittens like, “mmm, lunch” - no srsly..) Look at this aquatic frog @Guppysnail@Lennie What would you like to see next? 1. Shrimp contest 2. Fish

Alrighty here are the new kids. These are ember tetra. I bought 8; he gave me 9. 🎉 They are tiny nano fish! ❤️ This is what they will look like when they color up. And you know I can’t resist a snail 🐌 ❤️ I adopted this little blue guy from Kat’s Aquatics. He’s still a little tyke! He found a nice leaf to spend the night on. He decided to sleep in this morning. 🙂 What would you like to see next? 1. Loot haul 2. Non-fish animals at Aquashella

That looks incredible! Beware the duckweed:

My advice would be to just use the outside spigot and a Brute trash can. You'll get much more efficiency and it will be easier and cheaper. However, if you want it for other reasons, including having the tap on your sink, a plumber is not a bad idea. 🙂 Just remember, with that pressurized container, you are look at up to 96% waste water (depending on how you use it).

I was inspired by your upgrade. So I was going to give it a try. When I pulled the empty Easy planter out of the tank, I was surprised to find a dozen or so shrimp inside it! So I drilled a few little holes like you did and then decided to go ahead and drill a couple of large holes on the outside..... Shrimp Cave!

I keep both ADF and terrestrial frogs. ADF get their calcium from the water. Some people teach their frogs to eat frozen bloodworms from a feeding dish but a diet of only 1 thing is not good plus bloodworms are very poor nutrition. Reports say they don’t see well I find this very false I only feed live grindle worms, live white worms and live BBS I recently added live daphnia magna to the mix. I find my ADF to be excellent hunters and can see live worms hit the tank from anywhere. They will sit still watching for movement since they don’t recognize anything not moving as food. The slightest movement even brine shrimp along the bottom get snapped up skillfully. I scatter them about the tank. They just look clumsy. I do use Aquatic frog and tadpole pellets but I have never seen them eat those my shrimp clean them up.

Today I attended Aquashella Daytona 2023! It was epic! I learned a lot of things from a lot of cool people. It is 10pm and I just finished acclimating my new kids to their respective tanks and tidying up the fish room because with all the merch and previous maintenance I failed to clean up, it looked like a bomb hit. For now, I will leave you with a few photos and a video of the entrance. I have a lot of photos and videos, so we will have to do this in parts. What would you like to see next? 1. Interesting items I found, or 2. Shrimp contest

including Taco truck. 🙂 Something very interesting: I grabbed a bottle of easy green and brought it over to the counter. Just a little while later one of the employees noticed the display and moved a bottle into the empty location. Just those little touches are really cool... 🙂 Oh, and they had all the fish I wanted. 🙂

My wife really wants to get some nothobranchius (don't kill me on the spelling) killis. I understand they don't live all that long but some places online say up to a couple of years in aquarium. I'm just wondering if it's a mistake to buy adults or experiences you've had with eggs? And yes I do plan on breeding them so any thoughts there I'm listening to as well. Thanks!

My obsession before fish was reptiles 😍

#1 😃 No wonder you didn’t get to go to any presentations! Looks like it was a huge event! Glad you had a great time!

This tank has a super large flow, so I am not sure if I can achieve this. I did once spray repashy powde into the tank ,that was a big hit among the sewellia and garras alike. Is it better to make the gel or to sprinkle the tank the powder directly? I never found if it is usable like that or if the maker advises against it.

Treats! also put some BBS in for Vulcan, i dont know if he can eat them with his mouth type, but i figured it couldnt hurt.

ok, ill vote for non-fish animals

all of the above?

I'll confess that I didn't read the whole thread! If you need the drinking water it would not be a good application for what I've got going on. :). You will still need to figure out some sort of accumulation, but obviously that can be temporary. 30 ppm nitrate is rough. Though maybe not for plants!

What fish did you get? 😄

Ha! Ancient days of history.

27 📸 😂

Still may be worth looking into. Check your local hydroponics store. They do sell units that can be cheaper and could get the water down to 50 TDS or so.

#1 ! Nice wall of ACO goodies 😅

Betcha went home with a couple of new fish!

Congrats! V. happy that you got a good batch after the duff ones a couple of months ago. 🎉

Do you live in a state where growing marijuana is legal?

Such great looking fish! Be honest, how many pictures did you take before getting a good one like this?

Hello. I’m Miss May from Annapolis,Md. I’m new to the aquarium world. I have a 10 gallon with gravel and artificial plants. I have 2 platys, tetra, and 2 Cory. I’m working on setting up my first tank (8)with live plants. I look forward to learning a lot 💜🔵

Shrimplets and Ramsies.

@Shea Loner I'm not at home this weekend but this is the stuff

I would use an acrylic tank. Preferably one with only one seam along the bottom or back. Then for a stand something with sturdy construction and I would make sure that joints can move but not give. For example my tank stand allows for some movement in the legs without collapsing.

I would set the tank on something called armorflex insulation. I don't necessarily know where a person would get it, I get it from the plumbing and heating shop where I work. It's used as insulation on piping and ductwork. About an inch and a half thick, black, very dense insulation. I set tanks on it a lot

Heehehe. Yeah, they have some toothiness to them! very very similar to a grey nurse shark (different than the normal nurse shark) Basically.... think of them as the puffers of the shark world. They just need to break through some crunchy things.

oh... horn sharks. Those are cool little dudes. 😂Love this. My gut tells me they fit into your pocket or make a pocket. One of those two. The name reminds me of a cookie-cutter shark. *I totally cheated and looked it up, they have pockets!* That's an awesome little surprise from your mom. Really cool that you could just take your time and enjoy it as opposed to rush. Such a cool view. One of the most crazy looking sets of teeth out there in the shark world, but they just don't have the mindset to be that aggressive. Given all the work we put into our own tanks, it makes your really sit and appreciate all the detail in those massive aquariums.

Nice killi strain! I sent an email to Practical Fishkeeping Magazines question column a while back about your build, and they came back with this (hope it pastes alright): Your first step is to find out the fish that are native to Cameroon, and then sort through those to see which of them are traded. A website called Fishbase is the starting point, and on its home page you can choose to only show the fish from chosen countries and habitats. In this case, searching for fish from Cameroon that live in freshwater habitats will do the trick nicely, and reward us with a list of 565 different species. While a lot of those species will fish you’ll never see in the trade, being too big, too rare, or too plain to be attractive to fish collectors and wholesalers, there are quite a few fish that familiar and readily available. You can also sort your results by Family, which is a good way to zoom in on the Alestidae (tetras), Cyprinidae (barbs), Nothobranchiidae (killifish), and Procatopodidae (lampeyes). All of these families contains species that might be of interest to anyone building a relatively small community tank with a West African theme. Starting with the tetras, most from Cameroon seem to be a bit big and boisterous to be useful in the sort of tank you’re planning; Bryconalestes longipinnis, the African Longfin tetra for example. There are a few genuinely small species native to the area, such as Bathyaethiops baka and Micralestes acutidens, but these aren’t traded much, if at all. I’ve only ever seen Micralestes acutidens on sale once or twice. There are some Phenacogrammus species that come from Cameroon, but unfortunately, none are traded as often as the Congo tetra, Phenacogrammus interruptus. Still, one Cameroonian species is occasionally seen, Phenacogrammus taeniatus, though with a length of around 5 cm, this tetra is probably a bit too big for your tank. Phenacogrammus are active fish, and I think need a tank at least 100-120 cm so they can swim about freely. On the other hand, another tetra species you might consider is Nannaethiops unitaeniatus, sometimes called the African Glowlight tetra. This is a lovely fish, reasonably widely traded, if overlooked, I think, because it’s quite placid and unassuming compared with the more showy South American tetras. It’s a silvery-green fish with one black stripe running from nose to tail, and an iridescent, slightly golden stripe above that. Some specimens also have reddish patches on the base of the tail fin and on the top of the dorsal fin, but I don’t remember my specimens having such markings, so this might be a feature of certain populations. In any case, at around 5 cm long, these fish are quite chunky, but being rather inactive, they’re good picks for community tanks with other peaceful species of similar size. One last option is an old favourite, Neolebias ansorgii. This seems to be another variable species, usually reddish with an extensive green patch on each flank, but on some specimens the patch is more of a line, while the base colour of the body can vary from silvery-green through to more of a reddy-brown. Males are more colourful than females, and when they’re in breeding condition, the colouration on the males becomes even more intense, the body becoming much more red. On the other hand, the youngsters seen in aquarium shops can end to look very washed out and plain. Hold your nerve though! Once settled into a shady, well-planted tank they colour up nicely. At a little over 3 cm long, these fish are little gems, and in groups can look amazing. They do need at least somewhat soft water to do well, which is something that holds true for most West African fish: aim for around pH 6.5 to 7, 2-12˚dH. If tetras aren’t an option, what about barbs? We don’t usually think of barbs, or even cyprinids generally, as African fish, associating them more with Europe and especially Asia. But there are a fair few cyprinids from Africa, even if they aren’t as often seen in the aquarium shops as the ones from India and Southeast Asia. Barboides gracilis, for example, ticks lots of boxes. It’s reasonably widely traded as the Dwarf Amber barb, and in a shady, soft water aquarium does well, schooling nicely and completely ignoring its tankmates. As its common name suggests, this fish is quite small (1.5 cm is typical) and easily bullied by larger fish, but is ideal for use alongside small, surface-swimming killifish. Both sexes are transparent with a distinct black spot at the base of the tail fin, but males turn yellow or amber when mature. Keep them in a large group as they are quite shy: not less than 10, but the more, the better. Then there’s Enteromius jae, often referred to as Barbus jae in older books. Even if not widely kept, it’s often seen in aquarium books because of its lovely colours: steel blue blotches on a semi-transparent body, with bright red markings on the flanks and fins. Juveniles are a bit nondescript, which I think limits their appeal somewhat, but once settled in, the males colour up amazingly. Adults are around 2.5 cm long, and again, you want to keep a large group of them because they’re quite shy. They do best in tanks with plenty of plants and shade as they tend to avoid open areas. The species is notoriously variable, and it seems that there are lots of geographical variants found across West Africa, supposedly including some that turn all-over red! These include a number of Aphyosemion species, including Aphyosemion australe and Aphyosemion bivittatum. Among the other killifish species from Cameroon that you stand a good chance of obtaining are Epiplatys sexfasciatus, and Fundulopanchax gardneri, and Fundulopanchax sjostedti. Of these, Aphyosemion australe is one of the best choices for mixed-species set-ups, being undemanding and easy to keep. It’s also widely sold, usually inexpensively, as it’s one of the very few killifish routinely bred on a commercial basis. Like all killifish, it’s a jumper though, so one thing to ensure is that the tank is covered. This brings us to the biotope angle. Relatively few African plants are regularly traded, with various Anubias species being the most common. Other species you might see periodically include the reliably hardy Crinum calamistratum, the fern Bolbitis heudelotii, the bushy stem plant Ammannia crassicaulis, and of course any number of Nymphaea water lilies. But do bear in mind, though, that these species don’t necessarily inhabit the same sorts of places. For example, while we often plonk Anubias in deeper, darker corners of the tank because they can do very well in such spots, the wild plants are more often found in liminal areas between the land and water, such as riverbanks or in the marshes around the edges of streams. Their rhizomes are adapted to creeping along rocks and driftwood, rather than growing into mud or sand, and as many aquarists have discovered to their dismay, these plants will eventually sicken and die if their rhizome is planted underground. Furthermore, some wold Anubias are rarely found permanently submerged, though Anubias barteri, at least, is one of the species that does well submerged, making it one of the best choices for the aquarium. Anubias are robust plants well adapted to flowing water, as are Bolbitis and Crinum, the situation is very different with Nymphaea water lilies. While the bushy leaves at the bottom of the plant don’t mind a gentle current, the long stems that connect the corm to the floating lily-pads are easily twisted and tangled. These are plants of ponds and ditches, or in other words, exactly the sorts of habitats you’d find killifish! In fact, Nymphaea are among the most useful plants for the right sort of biotope, creating plenty of shade at the surface, while leaving plenty of open space below the leaves for your fishes. The only problem is getting the balance right between filtration and water movement. Air-powered filters are probably the ideal, since the current they produce is minimal and tends to be spread out gently around the tank. What you need to avoid is anything that sends out a jet of water that’ll catch the floating lily-pads and drag them towards each other, where they’ll quickly become tangled. So far as substrate goes, it’ll really depend on the plants and fish in question. Anubias and Bolbitis are adapted to growing on solid surfaces, so you’ll want plenty of rocks or bogwood for them. Crinum look a lot like onions, with a bulb that does well only partly pushed into a rich substrate, such as gravel mixed with laterite or some other aquarium soil. They are adaptable and undemanding though, and will grow in plain sand or even gravel if given fertiliser pellets now and again. All three genera appreciate water current, so they’d be good picks for a rocky or gravelly stream biotope. There’s nothing to stop you using sand or even leaf litter in such a tank if you wanted to, but none of these plants will be happy if their rhizomes or corms are buried, so bear that in mind. Since Anubias and Bolbitis especially are plants of the riverbank, attaching them to rocks or bogwood pieces pushed into a sloping bank of rock and gravel (or sand) could look brilliant. Surprisingly, perhaps, it’s the smaller Anubias species, like Anubias barteri var nana that are usually found submerged all year around, while the bigger species with the longer stems and larger leaves, like Anubias hastifolia, that tend to be found around the margins or even above the waterline. So, while it’s tempting to put the taller species in the deeper part of the tank, that’d actually be the wrong way around! Nymphaea, on the other hand, are more for biotope tanks based around a pond or ditch, so a muddy substrate, lots of leaf litter, plus some twigs and choice pieces of bogwood is just what you’d want here. Such a tank doesn’t need to be cluttered, and rocks wouldn’t really belong in such a tank. When building riverbanks, it’s a good idea to use a gravel tidy above a layer of sand or gravel first. This creates a buffer zone between any rocks you later use and the glass floor of the tank. If there’s any slippage, the rocks will press onto the gravel tidy rather than the glass, making it much less likely they’ll crack the glass. You can now use rocks of different sizes to shore up the sand or gravel used for the river bank. Alternatively, you can pile rocks into the appropriate shape on top of the gravel tidy, and then fill the gaps with sand and gravel. The problem with riverbanks or sandbanks in aquaria is that, over time, they tend to subside and level out. Plant roots are useful for securing them (and to some extent, plants help to make riverbanks stable in the wild too, slowing down weathering and erosion). Slates are useful when placed more or less upright, as they naturally form little shelves, but I don’t think they look good mixed with waterworn boulders, so if you go the slate route, you may well need to restrict yourself to slates and slate chippings for the rest of the rockwork. Often, the more hardcore aquarium builders will create a stable superstructure from things like expanding foam and lava rock, using silicone sealant to hold everything in place. This is a massive (and expensive) job of work, but the results can be stunning! Probably overkill for a small tank, though, and if the goal was killifish, a more open tank, with some Nymphaea, bogwood roots, and a substrate of sand and leaf litter would probably do the trick nicely. Hope this helps!

I agree that Stratum is annoying to plant in. Especially carpeting plants.

I tried Fluval Statum in two tanks. It may have properties that are optimal to certain things. However, I couldn't keep plants rooted with just Stratum.