substrate recommendations for large acrylic

[clekchau]

Sand wont do any damage, i dont really see why you are changing substrate just for a magnet cleaner.. I dont use this and I never ever get any dirt or algae on the inside of the glass. Sometimes I just give it a little clean with a filter sponge type material when I'm bored. BUT if you've used sand you'll know its a pain because any heavy water flowing over it will cause big ditches showing the acrylic. BUT you never have to vac it, so its much easier to maintain and better for the water in the tank. Good luck with this.

because i've had over 8 years of experience with an acrylic aquarium and my experience was much different than yours, sand did alot of damage to the point that i replaced it with an all glass aquarium. i am not going thru that again.

 

[clekchau]

Here's my worthless experience for you:

Don't do gravel. It can get inbetween your algae cleaner and the tank, and that will REALLY scratch it up. I had it happen, and didn't know until after it happened. Plus, that big of a tank is WAY too big to gravel vac the whole thing. It'd be a nightmare.

Don't do rocks smaller than your fist all over the bottom. I used rocks like this at one point all over the bottom of my tank as a substitute for gravel and sand thinking it would be a good alternative. It was HORRIBLE. I couldn't ever get all the detritus vacuumed out, and the smallish rocks just trapped a TON of detritus. It was impossible, and I had to take it all out. Made me want to pull my hair out and throw up at the same time.

If you use a heavy enough sand, it's not going to get kicked up and scratch anything up (pool filter sand is awesome). I've never had a problem with using this stuff. It is dense enough to fall right back down to the bottom of the tank. It doesn't "cloud" up the tank with tiny particles suspended in the water. And you don't have to gravel vacuum it. You just wave your vac over the top of it and stir it up every once in a while. Best thing I ever did was to change to PFS substrate. A ton of people with acrylic tanks use it, and from my experience, it does MUCH less damage than rocks. And if you use powerheads/water circulation pumps correctly to suspend detritus in the water column, you won't have to even vac the detritus off of the sand as it'll just get sucked up by your filter.

You could also use larger rocks. If you go this route, make sure they are adequately big enough so that there is adequate water flow between the cracks and under the rocks so that you don't have to vac under them. You'll want to experiment with powerheads/water circulation pumps to get it so all the detritus gets kicked up into the water colums and sent to the sump.

As has been said earlier, you could tile the bottom. This is a pretty elegant solution. Simple to clean, won't scratch anything up. Seems like win win.

You could also paint the bottom of the tank (underneath the tank. Not the part that's exposed to water) if you don't like how the light looks now. I've done this before, and it turned out looking pretty decent. painted it super dark brown and then had driftwood in the tank. Seems like another win win as long as you think you'd like the look of it.

hmmm those are great options, do you have any pics of the larger rock bottom? i will try painting it to see how it looks first. if i can avoid substrate alltogether i will go that route.

tiling seems really cool but not an option at this point, the aquarium is already being cycled lol

 

[RareExoticFish]

sand would work.
it,s just the bottom, it doesn't really matter if it gets scratched... no ones going to see it.

 

[clekchau]

lol ... its not the bottom i'm worried about, i think i will try painting the bottom black and see how it looks first and go from there

 

[clekchau]

ok i went with some smallish riverrock substrate that i really liked when i went to the landscaping place to pick out my bigger rocks:

cloudy cloudy

clearing up a little will take a few days i'm sure

 

[nomad]

I have sand in mine ...the pumps outputs are pointing towards the front ,so there is 6-7 inches gap between the front panel and where the sand starts..that way I have no worries about trapping sand in the Mag-Float cleaner/scratching the acrylic.
In my experience tiles (beside giving a bathroom/kitchen look to your tank) tend to trap waste underneath messing up your water quality.

 

[clekchau]

too late for tile now lol

 

[Jc1119]

jc1119 your tank is awesome the sand looks great. i'd like to revisit with you in 4 or 5 years and see what you think, i also got my aquarium from midwest custom 7 or so years ago, after 5 years the scratches and worrying if/when the next scratch was going to occur and eventually was so unbearable i replaced it with a glass and had the scratches buffed out on the acrylic which are the pics above.

Ive had the 90 the longest at about 6 years. I don't really stress over small scratches to much, but I've actually repaired some big ones inside with the tank still running(during a water change). Outside scratches are real easy to fix. I have a 60 gallon glass that I've scratched and i can't repair. It's still functional but has since been banished to the garage.

i kind of take the scratches in stride, and repairing them has been relatively easy. About once a year I give it a once over and it's good to go. And the sand has NOT been the sources of any of my scratches. Most have been self-inflicted during setup, especially when using rock. But like i said, they can all be repaired whereas with glass it cannot, without some serious help

 

[clekchau]

i definetely did not have the same experience, with my glass saltwater i have sand and cleaning it is a breeze with zero scratches and i don't have to walk on egg shells worrying about it. i like the look of this substrate too, i was going to go with all black river rock substrate but it was a little pricey.