I have seen a lot of tanks on forums that are decorated without any gravel/substrate. My question is why? Also would it prevent good bacteria to build up since the substrate would promote that?
Substrate?
- Thread starter FishTankMan
- Start date
In general they do it cause it's easier to clean. Can go in daily and guarantee that you get every bit of detritus. Less waste decomposing means less bio load, so any BB you lose by not having substrate is balanced out.
I don't do it cause I think it spooks the fish. If you put sand on half the tank and leave half bare bottom, the fish won't swim over the bare section.
I don't do it cause I think it spooks the fish. If you put sand on half the tank and leave half bare bottom, the fish won't swim over the bare section.
yeah my tank was bare bottom for a few days when i set it up, freaked the fish out that they could see through the bottom in to the stand, they kept trying to swim down in to it lol
Bacteria (the types in question) will grow on every surface they can, especially where good oxygen is present. I use multiple filters with a ton of surface area on which my bacteria live. Adding substrate to my barebottom tank would give turds a place to decompose, necessitating more filtration and more frequent water changes. As it is, I remove turds when I see them from the glass bottom and the total amount of waste in the tank is lower. It is my belief that the amount of bacteria that can colonize gravel is less than enough to counteract the amount of rotting junk it can hold. So I let my filters do most of the biological work and I take mechanical duty on the big chunks. My nitrAtes were 15ppm this week before my weekly water change and my 125 gallon tank has 1 Oscar, 5 raphael catfish of lengths between 5" and 9", an L200 pleco, a Paratilapia Polleni and a liosomadoras morrowi. Heavy stocklist plus low turd saturation equals lower bioload for more fish. Gravel would shoot that to hell.