Plant Care

Substrate and hardscape are the foundation your entire aquascape stands on — literally and biologically. Substrate choice decides which plants can root, whether your water chemistry gets buffered (aquasoils like ADA Amazonia pull pH and KH down for soft-water species and shrimp), and how much built-in nutrition your plants start with. Hardscape — driftwood and stone — decides the composition, the hiding places, and the surfaces your epiphytes and mosses will colonize.

The substrate decision tree is short. Want a high-tech carpeted tank or caridina shrimp? Nutrient-rich aquasoil (ADA Amazonia, UNS Controsoil, Tropica) buffers pH low and feeds roots for a year or more — at the cost of an ammonia leach during the first weeks that demands water changes. Running low-tech with epiphytes and water-column feeders? Inert sand or fine gravel with root tabs under heavy root feeders is cheaper, cleaner, and perfectly effective. Capping soil with sand gives a natural look with the best of both. Avoid coarse gravel for planted tanks — debris sinks where siphons cannot reach it.

For hardscape, learn your materials: spider wood and mopani leach tannins (harmless, even beneficial, but they tint water); dragon stone and seiryu stone raise pH and hardness slightly — test before committing in soft-water setups. Arrange dry, photograph, revise, then flood. The guides below compare every major substrate head-to-head, cover depth and sloping techniques, and show how to anchor wood that wants to float and stack stone that wants to tumble.