Best or better substrate?

[Bryan]

Still putting the pieces together. Have the tank, light and glass cover so far.

Is there a preferred substrate? African Cichlid sand, crushed coral, “live” sand or just any old stuff? And is calcium carbonate also known as anything else?

Thanks for your help - trying to not mess this up. I’m likely making this more complicated than necessary!

[sliphorn]

Still putting the pieces together. Have the tank, light and glass cover so far.

Is there a preferred substrate? African Cichlid sand, crushed coral, “live” sand or just any old stuff? And is calcium carbonate also known as anything else?

Thanks for your help - trying to not mess this up. I’m likely making this more complicated than necessary!

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Myself and a lot of other folks here use aragonite which is cal carb. Crushed coral works great too. Do not use live sand because it will likely cause a nutrient overload. You can get a small bag of aragonite pretty inexpensively at a marine fish shop.

You can also use regular old sand and add calcium carbonate in the form of cuttle bone, crushed coral, crushed eggshells...there are alot of choices out there.
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[Bryan]

Perfect! Thank you.

[Dch48]

Personally, I think anything will do. I have regular aquarium gravel with some pieces of terra cotta. I just add a piece of cuttlebone from time to time.

[sliphorn]

Personally, I think anything will do. I have regular aquarium gravel with some pieces of terra cotta. I just add a piece of cuttlebone from time to time.

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I like the way the cuttlebone looks after it has mostly dissolved. It has some cool looking striations and ridges to it.
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