# ADA Amazonia vs Inert Black Sand?



## awesometim1 (Oct 31, 2013)

I'm wondering if the Amazonia is worth it over inert black sand. I am clearly aware of the good nutrients Amazonia has but I'm going to dose EI with Nilocg ferts so I am wondering if Amazonia is necessary. I'm going to be carpeting hc and growing med-high stem plants. Lastly, the price tag of 50$ is really what's holding me back. I already went up and above my budget so I don't want to be spending more if it doesn't make a huge difference. I would rather spend that money on plants and fish. But I also want optimal growth and carpeting for sure. 
* will be going high tech with this tank(press. co2, LED lights)



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## DaveK (Jul 10, 2010)

My thoughts on this are that both Amazonia or inert black sand will work just fine. Both can give you excellent results. Which one you choose depends more upon how you want to set up and handle your tank.

Since your going to go high tech and EI dosing, I don't think you'll see much difference. The one area where I could see Amazonia having a slight advantage here is if you have heavy root feeding plants such as amazon swords. However, you can easily solve this by using some root tabs with inert black sand. 

In my own tank, I originally had Amazonia and then replaced it with eco-complete, because the Amazonia fell apart and looked really ugly. However, it did grow plants well, even if you don't add other ferts. With the eco-complete I use dry ferts and DIY root tabs. 

As you mention price is a big factor. Today, I would save my money and go with the less expensive option. However, I wouldn't call someone that went with Amazonia wrong.


----------



## awesometim1 (Oct 31, 2013)

DaveK said:


> My thoughts on this are that both Amazonia or inert black sand will work just fine. Both can give you excellent results. Which one you choose depends more upon how you want to set up and handle your tank.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Ok thank you. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

First, make sure you actually price out the substrate you are buying. I know you said inert black sand (which can actually be expensive, but their are other cheap options), but I found ADA Aqua Soil was within $10-15 of most commercial substrates, because I only needed one bag, and one bag was enough for a 60P with no crazy slopes. On the contrary, I may have needed 2-3 bags of many other substrates. Essentially, I found price was not a big factor for the substrates I was looking at, though I would have thought differently. I bought mine directly from Aqua Forest Aquarium's store front, not online, so I didn't have to pay shipping, but at that point, they were changing more in store than online so I don't know if I saved money or not from that.

ADA Aqua Soil has advantages and disadvantages that are well known. However, one big one to me that isn't often talked about is that you cannot really use a gravel vacuum with it. This may not be important at first, but after a few scapes, I typically like to clean up my substrate really well. In my current tank, I have been spending a ton of time removing organic material from several setups that got neglected, restarted, and neglected again, and this stuff has been frustrating compared to something like black sand. I also have the BGA to go with it, which is now receding and almost gone, but this all took me a ton of time, and every time I felt I was done, more was hiding somewhere else.

I have had perfectly good luck with a mixture of Petco black sand, Flourite Black, and Flourite Black Sand. A big advantage to this stuff is I started a some tanks with this stuff, and still continued to use it, and did so for over 10 years, and still kept it to use again. It gets a good rinse when a tank gets torn down and thrown into a bin with the rest. Many of my best tanks had something close to inert black sand so I will say it worked just as well as Aqua Soil, lasted way longer, and for many people, it looks better. The downsides of it are almost none, obviously it has no nutrients, but that's about it. If you really want to, add just a 1/4in to a 1/2in of potting soil. You will have some nutrients but none of the downsides of a soil tank if you use that little of it. 

The only reason I still would use Aqua Soil in my 60P is because I always get scratches when I use gravel. I haven't scratched the glass on my tanks in years, but the bottom and usually the back if you have a large slope get a bunch of small scratches. If it was a 20H, I wouldn't care about it at all, with a 60P, it just bothers me more.

I know this post is long for basically saying I personally could do either and be happy, price aside, people often don't consider some of the downsides to AS, and almost never consider the upsides of an inert, heavy substrate. If you does daily, nutrients are not an issue. I actually would be more inclined to us AS in low tech (which I typically do black sand with soil) so I wouldn't need to fertilize for years, then only a few times a year after that.


----------



## awesometim1 (Oct 31, 2013)

talontsiawd said:


> First, make sure you actually price out the substrate you are buying. I know you said inert black sand (which can actually be expensive, but their are other cheap options), but I found ADA Aqua Soil was within $10-15 of most commercial substrates, because I only needed one bag, and one bag was enough for a 60P with no crazy slopes. On the contrary, I may have needed 2-3 bags of many other substrates. Essentially, I found price was not a big factor for the substrates I was looking at, though I would have thought differently. I bought mine directly from Aqua Forest Aquarium's store front, not online, so I didn't have to pay shipping, but at that point, they were changing more in store than online so I don't know if I saved money or not from that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Thank you so much for the response. This is exactly what I needed. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## thejoe (May 23, 2013)

This is what is in Flourite: 
Aluminum 10,210 
Barium 124 
Calcium 195 
Cobalt 6 
Chromium 13 
Copper 17 
Iron 18,500 
Potassium 2,195 
Magnesium 2,281 
Manganese 64 
Sodium 223 
Nickel 12 
Vanadium 
Zinc 

obviously Flourite HAS nutrients...


----------

