The best option is to add a 1-inch base layer of aquasoil and cap it with a 2-inch layer of white sand. The reason is because most aqua soils are made of a baked clay material that is dark brown. There are no currently available aquasoils that are white. You can do this by burying root tabs every month or by using an active base layer substrate such as organic dirt or aquasoil. The most important thing is thinking about how your plants will receive root nutrition. You can likely still grow plants in play sand but you’ll have more success with something like pool filter sand or an aquarium brand sand. Play sand is a little too dense and heavy to promote optimal root growth. What type of sand can aquarium plants grow in?Īquarium plants can grow in pretty much any sand substrate except for maybe play sand. This is especially true for dirt tanks as it will cause the base layer substrate to seep into the water column, which will make it muddy and possibly increase the ammonia concentration. We might have been able to avoid this if we were more diligent and precise with our vacuum routine.Īnother drawback is that it’s not wise to remove and reposition plants nces they have been planted. You will notice in the images above that detritus will build up along the edges over time and filter down into the substrate.

It’s not super important to us that our substrate remains perfectly white so we aren’t as mindful as you might be if this is important to you. We have found that regular vacuuming allows you to suck up debris and keep your substrate looking mostly clean. Fish poop, detritus, algae, decaying plants and other organic materials will be easily visible. The biggest drawback of white sand is that it shows everything.

But you can use white pool filter sand as a slightly cheaper alternative. We recommend white sand designed specifically for aquariums, such as CaribSea and Stoney River. It’s a little too heavy and fine that it might be more likely to cause issues.

The one type of sand you might want to try avoiding is play sand. And a few months after that it’s still doing exceptionally well: 20-gallon tank with organic potting mix That was certainly a concern of ours when we first planted our 20-gallon tank: Our newly planted 20-gallon tankīut after a couple weeks we realized that was a fallacy because our plants started growing well. Other people believe that sand substrate is too compact and does not allow for plant roots to grow. Sand is too dense for plant roots to grow The organic potting soil, which contains peat moss and other organic materials, provided adequate macro and micronutrients for plants to grow for a year or more without replacing the substrate or adding root tabs. We then capped the dirt with 2-inches of inert Super Naturals white sand: 2-inch sand cap This is actually true but can be easily solved by using root tabs or adding a layer of nutrient-rich dirt or aquasoil beneath the sand.įor example, we added a 1-inch layer of organic potting mix with sprinkled root tabs on the bottom layer of our 20-gallon planted tank: 1-inch layer of organic potting mix There are a couple reasons for this: Sand lacks nutrients for plants to growįirst, people believe that the lack of nutrients means that plants can’t grow. Many people believe that aquatic plants are unable to grow in inert sand or gravel substrate. Otherwise your plants will not get the nutrients they need to grow and thrive. This means they do not contain any nutrients that are necessary for most aquatic plants – especially heavy root feeders that absorb most of their nutrients from their root system versus the water column.Īs a result, you need to either have a base layer of organic dirt or aquasoil or add root tabs if you want to use white substrate for your planted tank. However, all of the white substrates listed above are inert (except aragonite). Super Naturals aquarium sand that we used We used CaribSea Super Naturals Moonlight Sand in our 20-gallon planted aquarium and are really happy with the result. Spectrastone Special White Aquarium Gravel This is useful if your local tap water is very soft or if you’re keeping hard water fish species such as African cichlids.īut for most fishkeepers, an inert white sand or gravel is the prefered option.

They come in a variety of sand, gravel and crushed coral options.Ĭrushed coral substrate will increase the pH, general hardness and carbonate hardness of your aquarium. What type of aquarium substrate comes in white?ĬaribSea, Stoney River and Spectrastone sell the most popular and commonly found white substrate.

4 What type of sand can aquarium plants grow in?.

2 Can plants grow in white aquarium sand?.

1 What type of aquarium substrate comes in white?.

Sand for goldfish aquarium