NEED HELP WITH TANK QESTION!!

[koop171]

Without gravel you'll be cleaning your tank more often, unless you like the look of poo.

Not allways true. If you have good flow from the botom of the tank to the filter inlets you'll be fine.

I never put anything in the bottom of my big tank and at the most stocked I had.

32" niger
27" RTCxTSN
16" marble cat
14" FF
10 and 12" Occel
14" indo
16" tem.

and my bottom stayed very clean.

but you have to have good flow to push debris to the fliter inlet. the only place anything gathered on my was way in the back beside the overflow box. and still it was never anthing bad.

 

[Ali1]

Unless you have some sort of flow control at the bottom of the tank, you will have debris/waste on sitting at the bottom. If this tank is sitting in the basement and not intended for display tank in a living room, family room, etc., then I would put some sort of bed at the bottom. Not just to hide the waste between the substrate, but to also give you more than one location of bacteria.

On the other hand, if you do small water changes on a daily basis, it may not be bothersome to the individual. Keep in mind, fish produce waste all the time

 

[malawi mayhem]

I love this debate....!!!

First, no gravel should not be thought of has "always" having nothing on the bottom of the tank.

I do not have any gravel in my 125G Malawi tank in my office, instead I have (Medium and Large) tufa rocks stacked all over the tank and the bottom is hardly visable. Also, it is the tufa from the LFS which has the hole in it and not a solid rock. So when you talk about suface area for BB... I would think that established, ( More than a year old) tufa has a ton of surface area....

When I want to clean it I take my Mag 7 with 3 plumbed AC Quick Filters, (What a great thing...! If you don't have one get one or 5...!!!), on the intake and a hose on the outlet to get into all of the tight places,( also may run my diatom if I have time...) Blasting all the junk up from the bottom and in between the rocks..... I do that once a month and a couple of times a year I will unstack, clean underneath and restack the tufa trying to add new fish at the same time...

Of course, no gravel could also mean barebottom... which would be a little naked....

mm

 

[Monster Oscar]

I love this debate....!!!


I do not have any gravel in my 125G Malawi tank in my office, instead I have (Medium and Large) tufa rocks stacked all over the tank and the bottom is hardly visable. Also, it is the tufa from the LFS which has the hole in it and not a solid rock. So when you talk about suface area for BB... I would think that established, ( More than a year old) tufa has a ton of surface area....

any pics???

 

[malawi mayhem]

Pics... I am working on it.

I am not really a "photog" and currently just have a camera on my phone... but a good friend and client who is a photographer is going to becoming here to pick up some artwork and I have asked her to take a few shots of the tank for me...

Hopefully, this week...!!!

Until then... just imagine a barebottom tank with tufa rocks if you don't know what they bare just go to a LFS and ask them I am sure they will have the same ones...

Now, my fish are rock dewellers so they like caves... if you have a different type of fish then you may want some type of substrate on the bottom... or if you don't want a reef type feel to it...

Just some thoughts... I will get the pics up soon...

mm