Gravel vs. Bare Bottom Substrate Question

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dookietank650

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 27, 2010
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on a 100 gallon tank with del rey 125 wet dry, eheim 2217, eheim 2213, will a gravel vs bare bottom tank make much of a difference on stuff floating around? right now I have a very thin layer of sand as substrate with some bare patches and theres not too much junk floating around, but am curious if that thin layer is actually doing something to help.

basically do you recommend gravel or bare bottom for established tank
 
gravel holds small amounts of good bacteria, but also holds poop..
its up to personal choice..
i think you will find there isnt much difference when you use a thin layer of sand, as it doesnt get stuck like it does in gravel, and your filter can stir it and suck it up..
 
thanks for the info guys, but im still alittle torn of what to do so any other advice is welcomed.
 
Well seeing how you about got a barebottom now next time you do a water change suck the rest of the sand out. See how you like it and if not then you can always add gravel or sand later.
 
Thats always an option.
I went from ~5mm gravel to sand in all my tanks, noticed I do have to clean at the least the sponge part of my canisters a little more frequently, but thats only because the crap was not getting stuck in the gravel anymore. You can watch the pleco poop swirl around on the sand until it gets sucked into the filter lol.
I've never been a fan of barebottom tanks, especially if its a display tank. For breeding though (discus for example), they can serve a purpose.
 
Tank maintenance is eaiser with a BB tank compared to a gravel bottom. But about an inch of sand is just beautiful IMO............
 
is putting in sand into an established tank with fishes init even safe LOL i managed to remove all the sand from my tank with a siphon and now its barebottom.but theres not too much difference cause nowmally the fish crap doesnt get trapped under the sand.it just is ontop so the filters still do the job.
 
Theres a couple topics on here recently that have covered putting sand in while there water and fish already in the tank. Also theres a few videos on youtube that show you how to do it without clouding up your tank. Just make sure you rinse the sand good before adding it. Even if you wash it and decide to just dump it in it won't hurt the fish any it will just make the tank so cloudy you can't see in it and can stay that way for hours days or even a week. If you check youtube though and follow one of those videos you should have no problem with cloudiness. I've added sand when fish and water was already in and just dumped it in it got so cloudy I couldn't even see how deep the sand was so I wouldn't suggest doing the dump method.
 
thank you everyone for the input! I welcome any more you may have. for now I will leave the sand alone.

i am curious about small river rocks as a substrate, what are opinions on that?
 
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