RE: [AGA Member] Aquarium Planning

["Nathan Freedenberg" <gnatster@comcast.net>]

" My own preference, if you want to be serious about plants, would be to
go 
with a substrate meant for plants, like flourite or caribsea
eco-complete, 
rather than messing with the laterite mixture."

I had my terminology confused yet again. I intend to use the Seachem
fluorite product and the wet CaribSea Eco-Complete. My question is does
one use solely these products to build a substrate or mix with and/or
layer with "traditional" aquarium gravel? What is the difference between
the 3 Seachem products besides size and color? Would one mix all 3
products? Would the sand component be best to layer on top or mix in?

SO many questions,

Thanks, 

Nathan

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-aga-member@thekrib.com [mailto:owner-aga-member@thekrib.com]
On Behalf Of Rachel Sandage
Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2004 5:00 PM
To: aga-member@thekrib.com
Subject: Re: [AGA Member] Aquarium Planning

"My plan is to cycle the tank with fast growing plants only, no fish."

Cycling refers to the period of time when the bacteria which convert
ammonia 
to nitrite & nitrite to nitrate colonize the tank. See 
http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html for a very nice explanation of
the 
nitrogen cycle.

Since plants are nitrogen consumers, not producers, you cannot cycle a
tank 
using plants only, unless you were planning to add ammonia as a nitrogen

source in the tank. But, since plants us ammonia and ammonium directly,
even 
if you did that you might not see the NH3-N02-NO3 progression that you
would 
see in a non-planted tank.

The only reason I can think of for waiting more than a day or two to
make 
sure heaters, filters, and lights are all working before adding fish is
if 
you want to wait a week or so to make sure the plants are really going
to 
grow.

My own preference, if you want to be serious about plants, would be to
go 
with a substrate meant for plants, like flourite or caribsea
eco-complete, 
rather than messing with the laterite mixture.

Sorry if this is stuff you already knew.

Rachel 
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