The risks of bite size gravel?

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dbcb314

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Jun 4, 2007
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Tallahassee
I am about 90% sure I want a black substrate in my tank and after I get the lighting situation in my tank taken care of (need more lights if I add a black substrate with a black background) this is going to be my next purchase.

Right now I have river pebbles in the tank. It hides the fish too well and makes them kind of hard to see. Plus, blood worms and such fall into the cracks which means I have to clean it often and the polys have a harder time getting to the food (but it doesn't stop them haha).

So its between black sand and black gravel. I prefer gravel bc it hides poops better and it doesn't clog my filter. But, I am worried about one of the polys ( I have 7 at the moment) eating a piece of gravel and dieing.

Does this happen frequently enough to worry about? Or is this a pretty rare occurance? I will go sand if I have too, but I really prefer small gravel.

Cliffs

- want to change substrate
- black sand or black gravel
- how common is death by gravel ingestion?
 
dbcb314;2409380; said:
Does this happen frequently enough to worry about? Or is this a pretty rare occurance? I will go sand if I have too, but I really prefer small gravel.

Cliffs

- want to change substrate
- black sand or black gravel
- how common is death by gravel ingestion?
Click to expand...
it's a rare occurence. i've used standard aquarium gravel for over 10 years, and i've had one death due to gravels stuck in a bichir's mouth. I've slowly converted all my tanks to sand.

so about your question whether this happens frequently enough to worry about, yes and no i suppose. For me, one case is frequent enough.
 
I understand your worry, but death from swollowing fine gravel is not a frequent occurance. I have only 1 death from gravel swallow after 6 years of keeping bichirs. Most will know the difference between food and gravel and will spit it out.

Mine died after swallowing some gravel after I feed it with sinking carnivore pellets. It swallow some gravel while picking up the pellets and the gravel got stuck in its stomach. It did not manage to pass it out and died from complication.

So dun worry too much. I wonder if any other Bros here could share their views on the matter?
 
Here is my take on this. I'm sure bichirs in the wild have swallowed gravel by accident every now and then. I don't think this will be an issue if you have bigger bichirs like 10" plus because bigger mean they will have bigger stomach and bigger hole to pass it out. I've seen my bichirs eaten gravel with pellets before and no issue with this setup for one year. <knock on wood>:D My gravel is like rice krispy size. It's a mixed of river rock colors. brown, green, black, white, orange, red.

Here is a picture to show off the platinums and gravel size comparison.:D

img3300zt4.jpg
 
there is gravel that is not like sugur sand its fine but has a little size to it smaller than gravel though. and it comes in nice colors darker ones to .
 
Go with sand, much nicer look.
 
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