Which Is the Best Aquarium Substrate For Your Tank?

‎ What kind of substrate (like gravel, sand, plant substrate, or dirt) is best for your aquarium? It can depend on many factors. Do the fish you keep like to dig or are they prone to swallowing things? What kind of aquatic plants will you be keeping? Do you need special features like live bacteria or pH changes? Cory goes into all of these details to find out which substrate is right for you.

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At Aquarium Co-Op, we focus on your aquariums. We specialize in freshwater tropical fish, aquatic plants, and the overall betterment of the freshwater fish keeping hobby. Our goal is to help you with your first pet fish and graduate you to an advanced aquarium hobbyist. If you'd like to take it to the next level, subscribe to Aquarium Co-Op and check out our weekly videos.

Cory McElroy is employed by Aquarium Co-Op LLC. He also owns Aquarium Co-Op LLC. Therefore, all content is sponsored by Aquarium Co-Op.

#Aquariumcoop #Aquariumfish #Fishtank

[AquariumCoop]

*What kind of substrate do you like to use, and what kind of plants and fish do you keep with it?*

[aperson]

Remember kids, if you are ever lost in the woods start talking about substrate, people with show up to argue with you

[tjpatton]

I recently changed out the gravel in my 55 gallon planted community tank for Fluval Stratum. Plants are loving it, however I will warn that it is very effective at lowering ph and reducing KH to 0. So if you have naturally hard, high ph tap water like I do, you need to be careful doing large water changes because these levels will swing quickly and stress your fish.

[lemonlizard]

There are three necessary things to consider when deciding a substrate:
1. The fish's needs
2. The fish's colour
3. Plants

1. Are you planning on getting shell dwellers, cories or sand sifters? It may be better to stick with a sand or finer substrate
2. A blue fish will stand out in black substrate, a black fish will stand out in white substrate, etc.
3. Sand may not work as well as fluval stratum, or other planted substrates.

A note on #3 is that you can always add a planted substrate under a bed of gravel/sand. We did this and it looks super natural. Sand and the plants are growing perfectly

[JTCT]

For my very first planted tank, I went with a deep substrate using Fluval Stratum for plants in mesh bags with a black and white sand cap. Im very happy with it and the growth on dwarf hair grass and cardinals (went with beginner plants) was near immediate....less than a week.
My next "natural" project will be from a local pond with a higher elevation from any roads....with a sand cap and culture from that pond.
No more gravel (only gravel) and plastic for me.
Plants enable you to do many more things with an aquarium, because lets face it, you cannot achieve nature without them.

[nicoletiana]

I WILL NEVER GET SICK OR BORED OF THESE VIDEOS!!!!

[Itsjustme-Justme]

In my opinion, the best way to go is an inert, fully natural, rounded and rather fine substrate. These are forever, you never need to replace them. How fine or coarse it should be, depends on the plants and fish you want to have. Very fine sand isn't good for plants because there's almost zero water cirdulation inside, no new nutrient and no oxigen reaches the root. Very coarse doesn't keep the roots in place and fish food sinks into it unreachable for the fish. Depending on the size of the fish, some medium sized gravels have a choking hazard. The most versatile typs is fine gravel or coarse sand, 0.5 - 2 mm in size, without extremely fine dust particles. The plants grow well in it and most species of fish do well with it too. Over time, it becomes kinda "active" by itself. Small amounts of organic matter constantly seep into it, decompose there and set free nutrients. The limited space between the small rocks keeps it seeping slow, it doesn't get as dirty as coarse gravel.
When you have plants that need a lot of nutrients in the substrate, you can stick plant fertilizer to their roots.

Active substrates that decompose or wear out have major flaws. They are not forever. You have to rip everything apart every couple of years, to replace the substrate. They cause a rollercoaster ride of PH and nutrient levels when you do a water change. When they are new they cause an overload of nutrients.

Substrates with artificial color coating are bad because the coating wears down over time. They create micro plastic inside the aquarium. And their look is artificial. I'm sure that fish would't chose to live in a disney castle.

[williamleidy]

I have three layers. Crushed lava rock, covered with fertalized plant substrate capped with small gravel. I have a 14 gal rimless cube with very minimal filtration so surface area is important.

[nofacelegoguy]

I love Cory's thought process and the way he explains things. This is my go to channel for all things freshwater aquariums

[NatashaReeder]

I use fluval stratum for the bottom and caribsea sand as the main topper so an inch or more so it won’t sink too the bottom so fast. Had eco complete gravel but my corycats weren’t as active as their are now come to find out that the gravel was scratching them up and causing red spots on their bellies. After switching to sand they were kinda jumping for joy and digging around and came out their little hide holes. I love sand cause it it feels so natural yes it’s a pain to clean but it makes feel more close to nature and most all fish will love it especially those that dig. I love how my trumpet snails emerge out the sand like little nocturnal zombies and then they disappear I also notice my betta scavenges around more and hangs at the bottom as she rests on the plants.😊

[aljanecko]

I use multiple, my favorite for planted tanks is fluval stratum, but it’s a pain to start up, plants don’t like to stay in at first.

[coreywest]

I truly appreciated the information in this video. While I am still learning I am trying to plan for a tank housing neocaridina shrimp along with live plants. The hardest part at this stage is selecting the appropriate substrate. I love your videos!

[RZNC]

I recently re-setup my 17T and put a half-inch of fine white sand as the substrate. I plan to have corydoras, so a shallow sand layer should keep then happy while not being deep enough to have any anerobic pockets. For my plants, I am using a plant substrate in beakers that will be deeper than the sand and furnish a place for the plants to flourish. We shall see, as it has only been up a few weeks with only some plants. Planning on adding dwarf corys and endlers later this month. Hopefully with this setup everyone will feel at home and be happy. Take care.

[XIxCaptainKRulLT]

I generally go for natural/black river stone substrates or CaribSea freshwater planted substrates. I've managed to have plants grow just fine in both, and two of my best planted tanks, a goldfish tank (no longer sat up) and a betta tank (been up since September) don't have planted substrates. Goldfish had no fertz or root tabs, and the plants just exploded (easy to understand why that was the case). Betta tank has fertz and root tabs and, while not as fast as the goldfish tank, they're still growing quite well.

[troywinterbourn]

I just set up 2 tanks . Both tap water, both high light with no CO2 . One tank I put aquasoil into mesh bags under gravel, The other was 30% aquasoil just mixed with the same gravel . The tank with the aquasoil mixed had tons of algae (staghorn and hair) and after 2 months is still an ongoing issue . The tank with bagged aquasoil I have had to add root tabs to a few plants but very little algae and less maintenance such as water changes . not really apples to apples as The mixed aquasoil tank has been getting much bigger water changes as it would of completely gone to rack and ruin If not for the water changes . Both tanks were quite heavily planted with lots of floating plants as well . Neither tank ever got above 30ppm nitrates as I was testing every few days .

[masonditmars]

My first 10g i got last march has all petco artificials but im going to aquarium co op this week to go all planted!

[goodmuffin]

I use tropica soil and then i have a sand area aswell. Works well for the plants that i have to cut back every two weeks!

[KushyCouch]

I mostly have used sand, or gravel with a good sand cap with plants like Amazon sword, Java fern, some sort of crypt, dwarf sagg. I do want to use soil again though because I got some nice colorful plants growing in it like rotalas and a yellow stem plant.

[CJBlack]

My latest iteration is Stratum capped with natural rock/gravel - I'm trying to up my plant game😎 Thanks Cory 💕👍

[papagrande]

I have had moderate success with a base of small natural gravel on the bottom of my tanks capped with an inch or more of sand. I only have what you would characterize as “nano tanks”, the largest being a 14 gal cube. In that one in particular I’ve gone small natural gravel under the entire tank capped with a somewhat larger gravel for the back two thirds with a beach of sand covering the front third. The plants have been a mixed bag thus far over 6 months but I’ve had clear successes in the sand capped gravel. I suspect that will improve now that I’m incorporating grow tabs and liquid (Co-op) fertilizer (aside from the dissolved fish waste).

I’ll add this as a “terrestrial” Rutgers certified master gardener of over 40 years. There is a soil correlation to what Cory says regarding the use of gravel as the planting base. That is potted and soil grown plantings benefit from “space” in the soil for root growth. Compacted clay for instance, like sand at your favorite beach, is not conducive to root growth in plants. Thus gardeners and farmers dealing with compacted soils incorporate various other materials (organics that slowly dissolve) by tilling and such to change that compacted “soil structure”. These techniques do a number of things that promote plant growth and root growth in particular. One important aspect is the break up of the compacted particles, providing “space” for root growth. And that “space” between the substrate particles, gravel in this aquatic case, helps create a superior planting substrate. Roots need space. This is also why stem plants often root like crazy when floated. There is virtually no resistance to root growth and so the plant takes advantage.