How important is gravel

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
yea this decision is the hardest decision I have had to consider for my new tank, and the only ond i havent made a deff decision on yet. I want the tank to look nice but looking at some videos of people bare tanks with impressive tanks still look nice, but I plan on having an assortment of different kind of fish, including a bichir, so I guess I should probably go with some fine gravel.

I have always heard that the gallons in your tank should be equal to the lbs of gravel you have. so if you have a 55gallon tank you should get 55lbs of gravel. I DEFF wont be doing that. I am getting a 150 gallon and I will probably only go with 50lbs of gravel if anything
 
Largemouthbadbass;966925; said:
Ha.......bare bottom is gonna show silt/dirt/detritus on the glass bottom 24/7.......you're gonna be vaccuming MORE with bare bottom.Trust me,i only have one FH in my Bare Bottom 40 breeder,and just him alone makes a little pile for me to vaccum.So i put in some river stones recently and it hides alot of dirt:):):):)
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imo you want to see the the poo so you can clean it up as it happens, i have one bare bottom tank that i vac every day,i use a small bore hose just big enough to suck up the poo,the warter parameters have been spot on since i went bare,,, a tank with no poo in it has got to be a plus:)
 
TCZeli;969016; said:
yea this decision is the hardest decision I have had to consider for my new tank, and the only ond i havent made a deff decision on yet. I want the tank to look nice but looking at some videos of people bare tanks with impressive tanks still look nice, but I plan on having an assortment of different kind of fish, including a bichir, so I guess I should probably go with some fine gravel.

i must admit my tank look a lot nicer when it had gravel, but now its bare the water quality is the best it could possibly be, lets face it when youve got gravel there is no way you are going to vac every bit of poo up, you are always going to miss some:)
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btw im not anti gravel i have 3 other tanks with gravel, the way i see it tanks with gravel look a lot nicer ,but bare is a lot healthier
 
well it is appearnce vs. convenience. I will also have a Synodontis Eupterus and a Bichir, so i guess I'll have to read up on how important gravel is to those fish.
 
soooo with the poo being vacced you're saying that nitrates don't build up as fast??? Did you actually record this? I have noticed no difference from when I went from bare bottom to gravel in a couple of my tanks. The water seems the same except you can't see the crap till it is in the middle of my clear tube on it's way out :P
 
well there is no question that it is healthier, with no gravel you can get every single piece of poo, and you will ALWAYS miss some with gravel so it will help prevent amonia build up with no gravel. Also thats just one less place for Nitrates to build up. It is deff better water quality wise but the question is it worth sacrafising looks, and bottom dwellers comfort level. I am torn, and have not seen everyone swing to one side of the argument or the other. I have a few months to ponder this, but i dont see me comming up with a decision anytime soon.
 
I can think of 4 things to consider when thinking about this

1 -quality of water - bare bottom
2 - looks - gravel
3 - convenience - bare bottom
4 - fish preference - gravel

:nilly: :nilly: :nilly: :nilly: :nilly: :nilly:
 
Right now i have a small tank, and after seeing some bare bottoms :D i took out thz gravel. I let the green algae install to cover the bottom, and clean the poo more often. The fish behave happier, so i do think it does make a difference. Also, now i can see what i am doing when i clean and therefore the japonica shrimp are much safer :)
 
ammerman19;969229; said:
soooo with the poo being vacced you're saying that nitrates don't build up as fast??? Did you actually record this? I have noticed no difference from when I went from bare bottom to gravel in a couple of my tanks. The water seems the same except you can't see the crap till it is in the middle of my clear tube on it's way out :P
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read post 27 it says it all:)
 
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