white fine sand good for plant tank?

[mario tan]

is it ok to have a layer of very fine white sand for plant tank. there will be a layer of ada substrate below this layer of fine white sand. a tank smaller than a half ft keeping moss and shrimp, will white sand affect the ph?

thanks

[moss_guy]

Don't think the white sand will effect the ph. But ada will definite effect the ph .

[Aquaculture]

It's fine for moss as it doesn't have roots to start with. Guess the addition of ADA is mainly because of its ph values and not for its fert propertities.

Just a suggestion. Why not consider adding a bag of peat as your filter media (External canister)...this way, your substrate won't have a 2 tone colour to it and yet your can lower your ph for shrimps.

[mario tan]

It's fine for moss as it doesn't have roots to start with. Guess the addition of ADA is mainly because of its ph values and not for its fert propertities.

Just a suggestion. Why not consider adding a bag of peat as your filter media (External canister)...this way, your substrate won't have a 2 tone colour to it and yet your can lower your ph for shrimps.

what is a peat?

thanks

[Aquaculture]

Here's its description from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peat

I formerly use the Sera brand but there are others around. The ph effect would decrease overtime, think about 6mths... but I didn't get around to that before I use fully ADA.

[RHX]

Fine white sand will flow down into the gaps form by ADA soil. In the future if you want to separate them, you'll have lots of trouble. You might end up throwing them away.

[torque6]

i threw my white sands away a couple of months back, when they turned brown with algae, best to get a slightest brown sand if you want to create borders in your aquascape.