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After the terracing is complete and the glue is dry, it's time to add the substrate. I like Seachem's Flourite substrate and had a couple of bags of it handy. I decided to try their new Onyx Gravel on top, and Onyx Sand for the terraced "road" area.
TIP: Flourite is dusty stuff (that's the price you pay for not using cheesy plastic-coated rocks.) To minimize clouding
of the tank, rinse it thoroughly. I rinsed each bag of Flourite (and Onyx, which is also dusty) 10 times with the hose outside; two or
three times is usually sufficient but I wanted a clear tank as quickly as possible. A good filter with floss in it will clear up
the remaining dust quickly.
This is a picture from my 15-gallon tank, in which I didn't rinse the Flourite. It did eventually clear up, though.
Here are the two bags of Flourite in place. This is where I noticed my first mistake: Obviously, the two bags of Flourite and two bags of Onyx Gravel I ordered wouldn't reach to the top of the divider.
To remedy this, I bought 25 lbs of ordinary natural-look gravel from my LFS.
Here's the tank with 25 pounds of plain gravel added atop the Flourite. You may have already noticed mistake #2: PLANTS! I had already ordered some plants and various other equipment. Unfortunately, the plants arrived early and the Onyx gravel and sand arrived late.
To keep the plants alive, I filled the tank 2/3 of the way with water and temporarily planted them.
Ah, that's better! Two days later the Onyx gravel and sand arrived. I added another 25 pounds of plain gravel first,
then topped it off with Onyx Gravel. A single bag of Onyx Sand neatly filled my "road" area. After being yanked out and then
thrown back in, the plants are now in their semi-final positions.
You will notice that most of the Flourite/Onyx dust has already settled between the last two pictures. I also added the piece of driftwood you see in the picture at this point. More on that, and on the plants, later.
TIP: I followed the "one pound per gallon" rule when planning the amount of substrate. Obviously this isn't correct for a 3" depth in a 75 gallon planted tank. I ended up with 30 lbs of Flourite, 30 lbs of Onyx Gravel, 15 lbs of Onyx Sand, and 50 lbs of plain gravel... for a total of 125 pounds of gravel.