Substrate Regrets: tell me yours, and what you did/didn't do about it?

[Dancing Matt]

Mixing eco-complete with HD gravel pebbles. I created a terrible looking substrate with black coarse gravel intermixed with lighter rounded gravel.

I didn't like pool filter sand, It got dirty fast and looked bad.

[Dawn T]

1 - I initially did my 1.5g jarrarium with fine black sand substrate. HUGE mistake. It showed every bit of debris, no matter how small. At a suggestion from this forum, I added "peace river" fine gravel on top of the black sand. WAY better. I won't do black sand again, that's for sure!

2 - In doing my 29g Endler tank, I didn't get the sand/fine gravel cap in the back of the tank deep enough. Makes planting stems a royal pain. I need to increase the depth, but the plants are so grown in, I haven't done it. One of these days, I'll get around to it. Either that, or I'll end up leaving it until I eventually rescape the tank. LOL

[PineSong]

On 4/28/2022 at 9:21 PM, Dawn T said:

1 - I initially did my 1.5g jarrarium with fine black sand substrate. HUGE mistake. It showed every bit of debris, no matter how small. At a suggestion from this forum, I added "peace river" fine gravel on top of the black sand. WAY better. I won't do black sand again, that's for sure!

Peace River is my favorite--it doesn't look dirty easily and it's dark enough for most fish to look good (even if not their absolute best) and it seems like a good particle size for plants.

 

[Dawn T]

@PineSongI love the colors, grain size, and texture of it, for sure!

[Jennifer V]

On 4/28/2022 at 7:21 PM, Dawn T said:

1 - I initially did my 1.5g jarrarium with fine black sand substrate. HUGE mistake. It showed every bit of debris, no matter how small. At a suggestion from this forum, I added "peace river" fine gravel on top of the black sand. WAY better. I won't do black sand again, that's for sure!

2 - In doing my 29g Endler tank, I didn't get the sand/fine gravel cap in the back of the tank deep enough. Makes planting stems a royal pain. I need to increase the depth, but the plants are so grown in, I haven't done it. One of these days, I'll get around to it. Either that, or I'll end up leaving it until I eventually rescape the tank. LOL

I can totally relate to your black sand woes. I thought it would be "pretty" and hadn't learned enough about substrates yet. Never again. 

[Jenja]

Two regrets on my 7.5g Flora - that I only bought one small bag of the flourite red sand (really needed a second one for better depth), and that I gave up rinsing after a mere 25 buckets worth of water. My hand didn't have a dead skin cell anywhere after all that agitating - even after all that it took multiple water changes and 3 days running a small sponge to clear the cloudiness. I was completely set to hate the substrate with a fiery passion - until I saw it planted. Looks so natural to my eye, like the similar to what I'd see snorkelling in my local lake (though much redder hued, of course). Here's from February, showing my crypt wendtii grown in insanely (I ultimately moved them out and broke the two crypt parva bunches into individual plantlets).

[Brandon p]

Fine Sand and plants

Edited April 29, 2022 by Brandon p

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

On 4/28/2022 at 11:40 PM, Jennifer V said:

thought it would be "pretty" and hadn't learned enough about substrates yet. Never again. 

Haha nearly the same words a friend of mine uses, but about black cars/trucks 😄

 

[Dawn T]

On 4/28/2022 at 11:40 PM, Jennifer V said:

I can totally relate to your black sand woes. I thought it would be "pretty" and hadn't learned enough about substrates yet. Never again. 

I chose that because I thought it would make the few red cherry shrimp I intended to put in there really pop. Live and learn.

On 4/29/2022 at 10:20 AM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

Haha nearly the same words a friend of mine uses, but about black cars/trucks 😄

 

I live in Arizona. DUSTY Arizona. So yeah, totally get that. 😆

[PineSong]

On 4/28/2022 at 10:33 AM, Guppysnail said:

I vote hide it with Java fern. I’m lazy and more plants are always good 😁

Well, I did purchase every single Windelov java fern that Petsmart had today...

[Jeff]

Purchasing a non-inert substrate (Eco-Complete). 

Going forward, I'll always buy inert substrates. All the substrates out there that have nutrients in them to start, eventually run out - so you have to fertilize somehow. Just seems like a waste of money.

Cheaper to get inert substrates.

[GardenStateGoldfish]

My biggest regret is setting up some of the tanks without deep substrates, the longer I’m in the hobby the more I realize I like the benefits of a thick layer of substrate. 
 

I flip flop back and forth on if I like sand or gravel more, although for me I’m pretty sure sand is the best.