Nitrate Bomb Bare Bottom

[ccdoido38]

Will you get nitrate bombs in bare bottom tanks?
i'm sick of my fish kicking up the gravel and getting feces, vegetable matter, etc. all over the tank.
and my parrot spitting gravel onto the acrylic.
and want to go bare bottom


i know it's a really stupid question for those of you who know...

 

[Bderick67]

Do you think nitrates are trapped in your gravel? Not sure what you are asking. No reason why you couldn't go with a bare bottom tank if you perfer it.

 

[pdbrady]

Your nitrates won't fluctuate due to substrate/no substrate. If you don't like the mess all over your tank now, just wait till there's no gravel to hide and hold some of it down How often do you do water changes? I as well don't like messes all over my tank, so I do very frequent wc's.

 

[ccdoido38]

sorry should have been more specific.
see, you get nitrate bombs since the fish kicks up the gravel, thus releasing all the debris in there right?

so in a barebottom tank, where nothing like gravel can hold onto the debris, is it impossible to get nitrate bombs?

but i'm thinking if i go barebottom, i can scoop the debris everynight with a net. with gravel in the tank i can't do that since the debris gets pushed down to the bottom of the gravel, thus requiring gravel cleans everynight...


i do a complete gravel clean with a 50% water change once a week. but my pleco eats the cucumber messy and kicks it up when someone scares it off the driftwood.

 

[Miles]

Go Barebottom and have a pre-filter in your filtration that you can change regularly.. Make sure your current blows all waste into that pre-filter. Easy maintenance.

 

[ShadowBass]

It's easier to eliminate waste from the bottom of your tank in a barebottom, and I think that's what you're getting at.

I run most of my tanks barebottom. In my 75g where we're growing out lots of baby clown loaches and other fish - hence fairly heavy stocking levels - it's barebottom and there is a powerhead in the back left corner which blows all the poop to the front right corner of the tank to be easily siphoned out.
This way we can remove it every single day before it has a chance to decompose into excess nutrients.

Barebottom or not you will still have to be careful about waste getting trapped in your decorations so you will want to shake them out periodically.

I don't suggest scooping waste out with a net, but sucking it out with a siphon and then simply adding new water in to replace the tiny amount you've removed. Scooping it out with a net you're just going to throw a lot of it around to get sucked into your filters anyway.