My Fish Tank by Lam Nguyen

Substrate

What I currently have:

Substrate:	Multi-layers consist of 1/2 inch vermiculite at bottom most layer, follow by a light layer of 1/2 by 2 inches clay roll sticks, final layer is a premix of commercially made black dirt mix with peat, vermiculite of about 1 inch to complete the substrate.
Substrate Sealing Layer:	1 inch of Red Flint #30 sand-blasting sand.
Gravel top:	1 inch of Red Flint #20 gravel.

Initially, we have white marble color gravel mixes, a pretty standard pick for the beginner. There were 2 sizes: Large size: 70% 3/26 inch. Small size: 30% 1/8 inch.

They look very nice. The white gravel reflects and scatter the light from the above made the tank look brilliant. But since the size of the gravel is too big, it is not an idea substrate for the plant's root. Waves after waves of algae, battle after battle, it's a never ending fight. After many moons of searching the Internet and read tons of information about algae and ways to combat it, I realized that I must remove nutrient out of the water column and keep it in the root so that algae can't use it. The source that cause the nutrient to leak into water column is the coarse size gravel. So I decided to redo the tank with what I believe is a better substrate. What I did to the substrate were as below:

Bottom most layer contain 1/2 inch of vermicuite. On top, I rolled clay into 1/2 by 2 inches and space them out about every 2 by 2 inches on top of the vermiculite.

Next layer is a black dirt commercially premix that consist of black dirt, vermicuite, peat that I brought from Bachman head quarter store at Lyndale Avenue, Minneapolis.

Next layer is sand about 1 inch from Red Flint #30.

Final layer is red gravel about 1 inch from Red Flint #20.

This new substrate seems to help. The sand and small size gravel did help in sealing the nutrient in the substrate and keep it out of the water column. However if I have to redo it again, I would use a finer sand for sealing and mixes the peat, vermiculite and commercially premix black dirt and mix them together with clay. This will create a kind of mud layer, a heavy pasted mud layer of about 2.5 inches thick. This mud paste layer is the primary substrate. It will be able to tightly seal the solid root fertilizer sticks. On top of this substrate is a standard 1 inch of finer sand like Red Flint #35 and 3/4 inch of Red Flint #20 gravel to seal the mud from clouding up the water.              The idea is to keep nutrient out of the water column. I believe this is very important in combating algae, part of my master attach plan. Fertilize plant through the root using fertilizer stick and keep nutrient out of the water column.

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