favorite substrate
- Thread starter eon aquatics
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Unless one is using an undergravel filter with the proper sized gravel, only the very top of the substrate is aerobic enough to host the nitrifying bacteria, somewhere around 1/2 inch things get dicey for them and by a small amount more there are none of these bacteria. Howevere, there are plenty of them in thet top layer of substrate. The exception to this is in tanks with live plants. These have their roots in the anaerobic zones of the substrate. What many plants do is to transport oxygen down to their roots where they release it. This turns that space into an aerobic zone which fosters ammonia creation and the result is nitrifying bacteria colonize.
What makes this even more interesting is things do not stop there. There are anaerobic zones often below and above the aerobic one created by the plants, And there are colonies of denitrifying bacteria which process the nitrate created by the nitrfyers.
Petersen, Nils Risgaard-, Jensen, Kim, (1997), Nitrification and denitrification in the rhizosphere of the aquatic macrophyte Lobelia dortmanna L., Limnology and Oceanography, 42, doi: 10.4319/lo.1997.42.3.0529.
The above aside, I started using gravel when I had an RUGF in my first tank, My high tech co2 added planted tank used small gravel, But in the past decade most tanks have used sand. However, none of my tanks with sand have substrate plants (they have potted and attached plants). Most of the sand is about an inch deep. I am a big fan of the Carib Sea Torpedo Beach sand. I began usung it with my Altum angels because one of the admins on the wild angel site has been to many of the rivers with altums and posted that Torbedo beach looked the most like what he saw the Altums living over. I liked it so much I now have it in 12/20 tanks (it also in all 6 temp. tanks essentially outdoors, these are all coming down starting today and finished before Oct 1). The rest of the tanks have gravel, mostly Estes Bits of Walnut, which I cannot say is still sold. It is great for plants as it is a small sized, rounded gravel. (That is a Otocinclus cocama, aka zebra oto, on the leaf)
What makes this even more interesting is things do not stop there. There are anaerobic zones often below and above the aerobic one created by the plants, And there are colonies of denitrifying bacteria which process the nitrate created by the nitrfyers.
Petersen, Nils Risgaard-, Jensen, Kim, (1997), Nitrification and denitrification in the rhizosphere of the aquatic macrophyte Lobelia dortmanna L., Limnology and Oceanography, 42, doi: 10.4319/lo.1997.42.3.0529.
full paper here https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.4319/lo.1997.42.3.0529
The above aside, I started using gravel when I had an RUGF in my first tank, My high tech co2 added planted tank used small gravel, But in the past decade most tanks have used sand. However, none of my tanks with sand have substrate plants (they have potted and attached plants). Most of the sand is about an inch deep. I am a big fan of the Carib Sea Torpedo Beach sand. I began usung it with my Altum angels because one of the admins on the wild angel site has been to many of the rivers with altums and posted that Torbedo beach looked the most like what he saw the Altums living over. I liked it so much I now have it in 12/20 tanks (it also in all 6 temp. tanks essentially outdoors, these are all coming down starting today and finished before Oct 1). The rest of the tanks have gravel, mostly Estes Bits of Walnut, which I cannot say is still sold. It is great for plants as it is a small sized, rounded gravel. (That is a Otocinclus cocama, aka zebra oto, on the leaf)
Very, just turn it on and hover it over the gravel, and dig in and move it around to pick up detritus. Just don’t pick up a fish…
my aquarium water is yellow, and i dont think its because of tannins because my carbon filters already removed all the orange tints
Yes quite easy to use
Basically, with normal gravel alot of your poop will get stuck down in the gravel and need to be vacuumed out. The more frequently you do this the better. Some extra-messy fish may be better to keep bare-bottom, so the poop has nowhere to get stuck and finds it's way to the filter intake.
Sand looks nice, and is preferred by some fish like geophagus which filter it through their gums. In a tank with sand, the poop will rest on top of the sand unless there is enough flow to carry it to the filter. You would use a gravel vac and just hover it over the sand to suck up the poop.
I wouldn't keep the gravel in filter bags, can't imagine that making it easier to clean. When you lifted the bags out, alot of the stuff trapped in them would mix around in the water. I also wouldn't use activated carbon or any filter material as a substrate.
On the water being yellow, generally sand or gravel may cloud your water when you first add it, if it isn't rinsed thoroughly. But won't turn water "yellow" per-se, that would be tannins. Tanning will continue to be leached from wood if you have any in your tank.
I prefer a sand/fine gravel mix in my SA community tank. The geos love it, and even at up to 3'' thick it all gets moved around enough that mulm and debris don't get trapped anywhere.
For my high tech planted I am using Eco Complete black, although the monte carlo ground cover is so thick that you really can't see it.
I am setting up a low tech planted soon where I will use organic potting soil capped with 1-2'' of quickcrete play sand. I will nor have any fish over 2'' in there so I don't see it getting stirred up.
For my high tech planted I am using Eco Complete black, although the monte carlo ground cover is so thick that you really can't see it.
I am setting up a low tech planted soon where I will use organic potting soil capped with 1-2'' of quickcrete play sand. I will nor have any fish over 2'' in there so I don't see it getting stirred up.
are there different kinds of tannins? my carbon filters only removed the orange tannins but not the yellow tannins
Carbon doesn’t do too great a job as removing tannins as other chemicals would as far as I know.
