peat under your gravel?

[motoman]

I set up my 20 gal and I put about 1 inch of peat on the bottom and then added about 1.5-2 inches of pool sand on top. I've had the tank running for about a month now. The plants are going nuts, my cript has even bloomed, and my fish seem to be fine. Are there any complications I should be aware of when doing this?

[brad]

The decomposing peat can actually rot your roots.  If you ever decide to move any plants around, you`re gonna have a bloody mess. That being said, I did the same. My crypts, swords and lotuses loved it for a few months. Then when you stick your finger in your substrate and you suddenly smell rotten eggs, you understand why your plants aren`t doing as well as they were at the beginning.

[GrapeApe]

I put a 4" sqaure under a trio of wisteria.  Sure helped them get going.  I've moved them once since, just kinda slide them with my substrate about 6" forward and didn't really get much of a mess out of it.

[gvv]

I used this:
http://www.bigalsonline.ca/catalog/product.xml?product_id=28671;category_id=3145;pcid1=3349;pcid2=
and  1-1.5" layer of pool sand over it and I should say that for 1.5 years I didn't have any problem with roots rotting. In opposite my crypts, dwarf sag and dwarf sword love it. My amazon sword I'm selling now was in the tank with this type of substarte and I should say it took me some time to get it out, as roots get into these plates very deep!
But yes, the problem could be when you trying to get the plants out - they ususally comming only with peat peices and it makes some mess. But this is little price, and water cleas very fast with AC filter.

[Mettle]

I used this:
http://www.bigalsonline.ca/catalog/product.xml?product_id=28671;category_id=3145;pcid1=3349;pcid2=
and  1-1.5" layer of pool sand over it and I should say that for 1.5 years I didn't have any problem with roots rotting. In opposite my crypts, dwarf sag and dwarf sword love it. My amazon sword I'm selling now was in the tank with this type of substarte and I should say it took me some time to get it out, as roots get into these plates very deep!
But yes, the problem could be when you trying to get the plants out - they ususally comming only with peat peices and it makes some mess. But this is little price, and water cleas very fast with AC filter.

I'm using the same thing right now in my heavily planted 10 gal. I don't know how great it is, as the tank's only been up for a bit and the lighting is only so-so. But it seems to be fine 'mess wise'. Didn't have troubles at all putting it down (and that was with water in the tank - but it does float!).

[motoman]

I have the peat plates in my 30 gal and they work good to. I just thought I'd try this out since it was cheap and should do the same thing in the end. Maybe I should have used less peat but oh well. I'll be very careful when moving anything around. Brought home some new neons today. Hoping to get some Apistos next week or the week after that.