substrate, shipment came, not enough ABG.. plantation soil ok to mix in?

[BonnieLorraine]

Everything at home depot now is pretty much the miracle gro brand and will have fertilizer in it. See if there is a farm supply or garden supply store around, something like an Armstrong's, sometimes you can even get lucky and find an orchid supply store. Lowes should have the long fiber sphagnum and the peat moss, but I think the only orchid bark they have comes mixed in some orchid mix that has perlite in it.

Edit: duh, I already told you to hit up a reptile store, just grab some repti bark there, it's a bit more expensive than finding a giant bag at a garden center, but you shouldn't need much.

[xboxQueen]

So yesterday was like a scavenger hunt lol. Went to so many stores and even called a few nurseries. I eventually found everything I needed.
The Eco Terra tree fern was the most expensive of it all. The hardest thing for me to find believe it or not was the peat moss, every store had fertilizers and wetting agents. I even checked 2 different Lowes. Finally found it at Agway. Lowes did have a bag of orchid bark that was 100% pure.
I already had some long fiber sphagnum.

And according to another site the mix should be 2 parts orchid bark, 2 parts tree fern(that stuffs pokey lol) 1 part peat moss, 1 part sphagnum and 1 part lump charcoal.

I didn't have anything to grind up the sphagnum moss so I grabbed small chunks stuck together and cut small pieces off with scissors, worked pretty good and I killed one of my old pillow cases when I took a hammer to the charcoal.

My tank has plenty in it now and the mix looks pretty close to what I bought

Andddddd even better, I might have enough to do another tank in the near future

Thanks everyone for the help!!

[BonnieLorraine]

I didn't mention the charcoal because it is a total pita, I buy it in giant 2 cf bags that I have to drive about 2 hours to get, you can easily get away without using it for small amounts, it adds a bit of drainage and it's good for any bugs you're adding to the tank, but beyond that doesn't do much, you could just use more bark in the future if you're short some actual ABG.

[DartEd]

I am very impressed with your gumption. Nice job and also great advice Bonnie.