Color of your gravel/sand

[RedBellyRhen]

I have heard that using black gravel/sand calms your piranhas and makes them less skidish. I use red gravel because as juveniles they dont really have that much red on their bellies and the red gravel makes them look more red than they actually are, but as i was cleaning the tank i netted one and i was like WOW you are a red little sucker, i've seen pictures of red bellies at this age (about 4ish months) and i don't think they are THIS red. Could it be because of my gravel color or something else? I took em out for a few seconds to measure how much they have grown since last month.
This is my baby Freddy he's the big boy of the tank
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/Rhenuyasha/P1020603.jpg?t=1269137051
And this is my sweet little darling Jason
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/Rhenuyasha/P1020597.jpg?t=1269137284

 

[Zander_The_RBP]

those are pretty red actualy for 4 months those are probably a bit redder than mine where i wish i could remember how old mine actualy are


i find the opposite though i find that red substrate and redish/orangish lights (low kelvin ratings) wash out the red in piranhas and make them look less red becuase they have less to stand out against if you know what i mean


personaly i will always be a fan of natural coloured gravel (white-tan-greyish)

the sand i use couldn't get anymore natural as i got it from a lake i have a youtube vid of the tank up somewhere ill see if i can find it

 

[RedBellyRhen]

those are pretty red actualy for 4 months those are probably a bit redder than mine where i wish i could remember how old mine actualy are


i find the opposite though i find that red substrate and redish/orangish lights (low kelvin ratings) wash out the red in piranhas and make them look less red becuase they have less to stand out against if you know what i mean


personaly i will always be a fan of natural coloured gravel (white-tan-greyish)

the sand i use couldn't get anymore natural as i got it from a lake i have a youtube vid of the tank up somewhere ill see if i can find it

Ahhh that makes sense, well i put down the red assuming they would try to match the color as like a camouflage technique and thus become more red. Ohhh that sounds cool, how did you make the gravel from the lake safe for your piranhas?

 

[Zander_The_RBP]

Ahhh that makes sense, well i put down the red assuming they would try to match the color as like a camouflage technique and thus become more red. Ohhh that sounds cool, how did you make the gravel from the lake safe for your piranhas?

with a hell of a lot of rinsing


basicaly i just put it in a big rubber maid tub out on my front lawn and turned on the garden hose i put my finger over half of the hole so it would shoot out with higher pressure i then aimed it at the sand and it really stirred it up and all the crap from the sand (there wasen't much to be honest) just went out the the tub with the water(overflowed out the top) but becuase the sand was heavier the sand didn't get washed away when i was finished the first rinse i let it sit in the chlroinated tapwater for a day (the chlorine would kill any nasty bacteria or parasites) i went back the next day and did a second rinse (same way as the first day) and let it sit in the water again over night and on the third day i did a final rinse and then i added it to my tank (this was when i was setting up so i didn't feel the need to dechlorinate it separately as i was about to fill it up and i would add the dechlorinator then anyway.


got the sand from the lake at my cottage, i actualy have several decorations in my tank from there; the sand, the rocks, the huge log of driftwood are all from there only pieces that arn't from there are the live plants and the mopani driftwood (although i think i will collect some elodea from the lake and plant that in my tank this year)


i was lucky in that this lake happens to be in the canadian sheild (large area of igneous and metamorphic rocks) so there was nothing calcium based in it and all granite and quartz are inert and don't leach into the water as well as it has a ton of iron oxide in it which my amazon sword plants really love (they love substrates rich in iron)

 

[RedBellyRhen]

with a hell of a lot of rinsing


basicaly i just put it in a big rubber maid tub out on my front lawn and turned on the garden hose i put my finger over half of the hole so it would shoot out with higher pressure i then aimed it at the sand and it really stirred it up and all the crap from the sand (there wasen't much to be honest) just went out the the tub with the water(overflowed out the top) but becuase the sand was heavier the sand didn't get washed away when i was finished the first rinse i let it sit in the chlroinated tapwater for a day (the chlorine would kill any nasty bacteria or parasites) i went back the next day and did a second rinse (same way as the first day) and let it sit in the water again over night and on the third day i did a final rinse and then i added it to my tank (this was when i was setting up so i didn't feel the need to dechlorinate it separately as i was about to fill it up and i would add the dechlorinator then anyway.


got the sand from the lake at my cottage, i actualy have several decorations in my tank from there; the sand, the rocks, the huge log of driftwood are all from there only pieces that arn't from there are the live plants and the mopani driftwood (although i think i will collect some elodea from the lake and plant that in my tank this year)

oooo yeah that is a hell of a lot of rinsing!! Your tank looks great tho. What i would really love to do is get this replica T-Rex skull they have down at my LFS and put that in there with my Piranhas and give my pleco and surviving ghost shrimp a place to hide from Freddy and Jason plus it would just look bad ass HOWEVER it's like $30 :/

 

[Zander_The_RBP]

oooo yeah that is a hell of a lot of rinsing!! Your tank looks great tho. What i would really love to do is get this replica T-Rex skull they have down at my LFS and put that in there with my Piranhas and give my pleco and surviving ghost shrimp a place to hide from Freddy and Jason plus it would just look bad ass HOWEVER it's like $30 :/

lol i see those at my LFS too i prefer the ones that look like crocodile skulls as those seem more natural to me they all look cool though


my dad's friend does a lot of hunting though im going to see if he can get me a deer skull or something that would be the perfect touch to my tank i think

 

[RedBellyRhen]

lol i see those at my LFS too i prefer the ones that look like crocodile skulls as those seem more natural to me they all look cool though


my dad's friend does a lot of hunting though im going to see if he can get me a deer skull or something that would be the perfect touch to my tank i think

Oh! You can put deer skulls in your tank?! I have like literally 30 something skulls in my garage from me and my dad's hunting. I would think that the antlers would cause a problem because they are sooo high in calcium wouldn't it mess with the ph of the tank?

 

[Zander_The_RBP]

it might mess with the hardness a little probably not much as it dissolves very slowly, what you have to remember though is it's pure calcium so it doen't act as a buffer (calcium carbonate will raise pH but the calcium in the bones isn't carbonate)


if you know more of the advanced things involved in water chemistry you learn that total calcium and magnesium dissolved in water = your general hardess (GH) and your buffering capacity = how many CO3 molecules are present in your water for example CaCO3 (calcium carbonate) has a CO3 part to it so it will raise the ph of your water and the KH (carbonate hardness) (all carbonates will do this) but it will also raise your GH (the Ca part is responsible for this)


if you remeber back to science class, the periodic table, you will remeber we have the alkaline metals group and the alkali metals these are calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium (that occur commonly there are several others but most of them you wouldn't have in an aquarium). That's why we often call the GH "alkalinity" because these metals are responsible for it

put simply your general hardness GH is your total amount of alkali/alkaline metals dissolved in the water (sodium, magnesium, calcium, potassium)

and your carbonate hardness (KH) is the total number of CO3 molecules present the CO3 is always attached to one of the previously listed metals so usualy raising the KH WILL raise the GH but raising the GH alone dosn't ususaly raise the KH


in this instance we would be raising the GH through the addition of calcium(bone is calcium not calcium carbonate) alone so the KH would not go up

KH is the big one becuase it messes with your pH (at the same time it also stablizes it but it's best not to mess with it)

GH if it changes a little it won't shock/ do harm to your fish (of course HUGE swings would be bad)

if you really want to be sure it won't do anything to your paramters just coat it in a thin epoxy resin to "seal" it

 

[Diogenes]

it might mess with the hardness a little probably not much as it dissolves very slowly, what you have to remember though is it's pure calcium so it doen't act as a buffer (calcium carbonate will raise pH but the calcium in the bones isn't carbonate)


if you know more of the advanced things involved in water chemistry you learn that total calcium and magnesium dissolved in water = your general hardess (GH) and your buffering capacity = how many CO3 molecules are present in your water for example CaCO3 (calcium carbonate) has a CO3 part to it so it will raise the ph of your water and the KH (carbonate hardness) (all carbonates will do this) but it will also raise your GH (the Ca part is responsible for this)


if you remeber back to science class, the periodic table, you will remeber we have the alkaline metals group and the alkali metals these are calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium (that occur commonly there are several others but most of them you wouldn't have in an aquarium). That's why we often call the GH "alkalinity" because these metals are responsible for it

put simply your general hardness GH is your total amount of alkali/alkaline metals dissolved in the water (sodium, magnesium, calcium, potassium)

and your carbonate hardness (KH) is the total number of CO3 molecules present the CO3 is always attached to one of the previously listed metals so usualy raising the KH WILL raise the GH but raising the GH alone dosn't ususaly raise the KH


in this instance we would be raising the GH through the addition of calcium(bone is calcium not calcium carbonate) alone so the KH would not go up

KH is the big one becuase it messes with your pH (at the same time it also stablizes it but it's best not to mess with it)

GH if it changes a little it won't shock/ do harm to your fish (of course HUGE swings would be bad)

if you really want to be sure it won't do anything to your paramters just coat it in a thin epoxy resin to "seal" it

hehe all true but you grossly overestimate american public schools

 

[Zander_The_RBP]

hehe all true but you grossly overestimate american public schools

lol i thought you guys get better education down there than us candians eh ? lol you guys don't learn the periodic table anymore ?



i realise i shouldn't have said "if you remember back to science class".... no one remembers science class...... except me but im a super nerd what do you expect