Trying to pick out substrate for my new tank. Was wondering around Sutherlands today and I like the idea of doing a river rock/sand bottom. Any pros or cons to this set up?
River rock
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Go for it. Make sure you have more sand than river rocks though, and make sure the sand wont pack down, you will get some nasty anaerobic pockets that way. Just stir it every water change and you should be good. I have a mixed substrate in one of my tanks, looks great IMO.
anyone know where to buy some good looking river rock? I don't really have a river around me to go collecting.
I'm curious as to how annoying people find getting the gunk that collects between river rocks out. I've personally never been annoyed by it, but I've heard about people complaining about excess gunk being hard to gravel vac out of the crevaces river rocks make
River rocks can be just big enough to get stuck in a siphon, meaning every 2 minutes you have to reach in and pull a rock out, or unclog it and start the siphon again. With normal gravel or pea gravel (smaller river rocks) you can just dive right in, its too small to get wedged. With sand, everything sits on the surface.
Comparatively it is not a huge annoyance, but it is one none the less that can be easily avoided.
Comparatively it is not a huge annoyance, but it is one none the less that can be easily avoided.
For me it depends on what color the river rock is predominantly... I didn't like it so much because I thought it tended to make things look yellowish... but I'm sure that had to do with lighting as well.. cause I have seem some sand , river rock mixes here on MFK and they look great..
In my experience, get larger (3"+) rocks and leave enough space in between each rock to get your siphon in, otherwise you will be moving them around to get the poop. Looks great, esp with 10k lighting (dep on fish) IMHO.
Ok cool! Should I boil the river rock to make sure it is free of any chemicals? (read it on here somewhere)