i have a 75 gal and the bottom is currently bare. i like that it is easy to clean but i would like to add some live plants and some wood. the idea that i had was to get a couple of 1" thick peices of slate and peice them around the tank about 2-3 inches apart from one another and then fill in the gaps with a fine dark gravel to plant my plants. does anyone know if i would have a wast build up problem under the peices of slate or would they be fine. i dont want to crowd the tank with structures because my fish prefer plant cover to hiding places. if anyone has and advice about this type of set up or ideas for different setups i am open to perty much anything.
substrate going from bare to gravel advice/tips
- Thread starter philhawk
- Start date
It's all personal preference, the slate would look pretty cool, what you can do is try to get pvc pipes with a power head on it make it like a dodgy UGF put slits in it and just s bend it up n down your tank, turning it on every week or something just to get the circulation going if you are that worried about build up. I'm sure that the amount of build up shouldnt be that much.. have you ever thought about just using some smaller peaces and covering the bottom with a black rock pebble, it looks really hot!
but if you chose to do only gravel with little slate bits, you can still siphon the gravel and clean it. large pieces may be hard to vacuum under.
one thing you have to be cautious of is if you have bottom dwelling fish, like cats or rays, the slate tends to be sharp and as they are cruising along the bottom, they can get pretty messed up, especially if they are on the hunt or retreating from an attack.
you can use it just to stir up the water incase you really want to make sure it's clean, just turn it on when you are cleaning out your tank, and if it blows some rocks out, just neaten it up, if you are having plants in there, you need to be weary of their roots, that's why i would suggest for the UGF to blow instead of suck like the traditional ones.
http://www.sydneycichlid.com/content/?page_id=17
there are some ways where you can just have some small drift wood pieces with live plant on them, on a less than one inch gravel bottom, the plants are easy to vacuum around and can be moved easily
wow, I waffle.
but if you chose to do only gravel with little slate bits, you can still siphon the gravel and clean it. large pieces may be hard to vacuum under.
one thing you have to be cautious of is if you have bottom dwelling fish, like cats or rays, the slate tends to be sharp and as they are cruising along the bottom, they can get pretty messed up, especially if they are on the hunt or retreating from an attack.
you can use it just to stir up the water incase you really want to make sure it's clean, just turn it on when you are cleaning out your tank, and if it blows some rocks out, just neaten it up, if you are having plants in there, you need to be weary of their roots, that's why i would suggest for the UGF to blow instead of suck like the traditional ones.
http://www.sydneycichlid.com/content/?page_id=17
there are some ways where you can just have some small drift wood pieces with live plant on them, on a less than one inch gravel bottom, the plants are easy to vacuum around and can be moved easily
wow, I waffle.
Are you putting in slate to conserve gravel?In time your gravel will spread out under the slate and dirt will be traped there.Your gravel will become too thin for plants and difficult to clean around the slate.
i was thinking of using slate just for the look. i didnt want to do just another plain gravel botom. i dont have any true botom dwellers. to be more accurte in the look im going for. the pieces of stone/slate would be 5-6"s across or little larger. hopefully they wouldnt be too uniform in shape. they would be spaced out with gravel filling the spaces between the stones. maybe getting a ugf would remedy the waste issue and maitain the look i want. any additional advice
With a U/G filter mulm will get sucked under the slade.Just get under them with a gravel cleaner when you do water changes.