36-years ago Tetra recommended iron in at least 3 inches of substrate for planted aquariums.

Endtimescoming

• 8 hours ago (edited)
I can tell you plants don’t work...well floating plants do help immensely which I believe you touched on, but I have a tank FULL of plants it’s a literally a jungle in there that the fish weave in and out of and they are root plants ...all of them, they do not take care of the nitrate. They just simply don't. Might as well be a bare tank for as much nitrate as they appear to take out of the water. I am about to set up a 40 breeder with a plenum and sand, which I was thinking of putting BCB material underneath of as well. Which I am going to put my Neolamprologus Multifasciatus in (little shell dwellers cichlids) Looking forward to trying this out right now I am doing weekly water changes (or should be sometimes I skip a week but that is definitely not good for the levels of nitrate at all) When I do it my thought is to put the hang on the backs on it with the biowheels that have normal aerobic bacteria in with them at first and then in a couple months time take them away (maybe 1 by 1) I know I can't get rid of nitrates with the nitrate factories running but I figure I need those and regular weekly water changes until facultative bacteria can colonize the substrate and then I can take them away