This was the start of it for me. In this article we are going to be talking about aquarium substrate. It is by far the most overlooked part of the planted aquarium.

But before we dive in to how I like to use dirt in my substrate. Let’s just set the substrate for a plant a tank aside for a minute and just talk about a regular aquarium. Where does the beneficial bacteria live in your aquarium? Your first answer might be your aquarium filter. Well true beneficial bacteria lives there. That is a limited amount of service area.

The beneficial bacteria lives primarily in the gravel, sand, whatever you have as a substrate or bottom layer of your aquarium.

So whether you have plants in your aquarium or not. The nitrifying bacteria that convert Ammonia to Nitrite to Nitrate all primarily live here. At least more so here than anywhere else. So we want to make sure we take good care of this area.

You can recall the old under gravel filter days. Where this concept held true. The under gravel filter used to pull all of the matter down to the lower level of the substrate. The beneficial bacteria could live here.

I have found that over an inch of gravel works best. Because more nitrifying bacteria can live on the surface area of that gravel.

As a note. I have been to master fish breeders houses. While they try to run a limited amount of substrate. They do run a handful on what is primarily a glass bottom aquarium. Because they understand the benefits of substrate, or how it works when there is a lack of substrate. Now before we talk about my favorite type of substrate.

I want to touch on how you can grow simple aquarium plants in playing gravel. Now understand that you are never going to get the robust growth as you would with a premier substrate. However there are aquariums that can be successful with either route tabs or just all water column feeding plants. 

Plants that do not absorb nutrients through their routes will obviously do fine in this kind of a set up. Naturally we sell all kinds of plants like this, Java Fern, Java Moss, Anubias and Bucephalandra all come to mind.

YES- You can have an amazing looking aquarium without a special substrate, but understand that your "Pallet of Plants" will be limited. Even with the craziest lights and the best liquid plant fertilizer... if a plant eats at its roots and you aren't feeding it there... then it isn't eating.

(NOTE: While I "Can" eat a noodle through my nose. It's much more efficient in through my mouth.

But never the less, if you want to do a planted aquarium with NO Dirt or good substrate. You can use plants that can be tied to the driftwood or rocks of your aquarium. One could also do a bunch of neat things with floating plants as well.