FishProfiles.com Message Forums

Which do you prefer.I like river stone for many reasons

Yup. I'm that crazy Twilight/animal/music girl

I like peagravel because it is smaller and better for planting things in.

-Vincent

The recommemded size for substrte is 1-3mm. This is what I use and prefer.
If you call pea gravel, a gravel that is the size of a pea that is far too large if you want to use live plants. River stones comes in many sizes from 1mm- to several Kgs.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

I like the smaller gravel in the planted tanks.

river in the non planted. looks better to me. and its funny to watch clowns moving the larger rocks around

Fish tanks are an expensive addiction

I like a combination of the two The gravel for the substrata, and the River rock for terraces and the like. Although back when I was in SC I would go and collect river sand, (not actually sand but finely ground down rocks) the particle size was larger than sand but smaller than gravel. Plants loved it. And that was the only substrata I would use.

mts.gif" border="0"> I vote do you?
My Tanks at Photobucket

Im not a big fan of pea gravel, it seems exactly the right size to stop plants growing, and trap the maximum amount of detritus possible. Plus everyone uses it and it makes some tanks look as boring as hell. Fine gravels and larger chunks of rock and pebbles are nicer, easier to clean, and have a clearer viewing effect. I find most of the pea gravels a waste of time to be honest, but there is one thing worse- multicolour gravel! TACKEEEEEEEEEEE!

Get thee behind me satan, together with those no fishing signs and oxgenators with animal mouths that open and close, divers, and castles that an irish gnome wouldnt move into on grounds of taste. Saw a kuhli at work nearly have its head chopped off by a crocodile head aerator the other day.

One day I will have my own fish store and such decor will be filed to the trash compactor.

I've got a great looking "desert" colored gravel substrate along with some larger "boulders" for variety and cover in my 20 gallon. I also have a handful of plastic plants for cover.

Calm down git......

There is a place for all that decor, besides the trash. Some people really like it. Each to their own.

*looks over at one of her tanks with multicolored gravel*

Hey! It came with a used tank I bought & I was too lazy & cheap to change it.

Besides I kinda like the way it looks. They ARE dull colors at least.


Logan, I think I know of a gravel/sand you might like. I went to Lowe's in search of fine gravel or coarse sand to put underneath my plants I plan to get, as my gravel is large.

What I found that I plan on getting is called, "paved sand."
In the one sack was all sizes of sand & gravel, like a rock had been crushed, except the largest pieces were only about the size of aquarium gravel. A decent sized sack for under $4. You outta check it out.....would be good for a tank substrate with or without plants.

standard pea gravel is perfect for cray. they love moving it from one place to another and sticking their little nippers in the gaps to pull out trapped morsels of food. No plants, so no worries!

I think the type of substrate really does depend on what you want to do with the tank, and how you are filtering etc.

A friend of mine has some river pebbles in his tank, but they are covered over with sand, so they don't have the giant gaps that normally come with that sort of substrate.


And *sniffle* at the coloured gravel I like my pretty blue stuff and coloured 'ice rocks' I don't know where I put my pirate ship though... I miss that.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

I'll check it out. Problem is the Creek Sand as I call it already has the nutrients and everything in it. But Eco complete will fix that stuff right up.


mts.gif" border="0"> I vote do you?
My Tanks at Photobucket

Ok...kind of newbie here when it comes to designing tanks. You can use sand in a freshwater tank? How do you clean it? Doesn't it come right up when you siphon? I've always seen it in marine tanks, so I didn't realize.

I have Eco-Complete in my main 55 gallon planted tank. Great stuff
In my QT tank I have larger river stone rock stuff.

CORRECTION

That should have read paver sand, not paved sand, in my previous post. I bought a bag yesterday, but I'm not going to use it, as I'm pretty sure it is not the same stuff I was shown the first time, cause this stuff I bought is too fine.

The first time, they had a busted bag of what the guy was telling me was paver sand & it was coarser than the paver sand that I bought yesterday. It was sitting next to bags labeled base sand. So I believe what I was shown the first time was the base sand. I am going to town today, so I will get the base sand & if it is what I originally saw & wanted I will edit this post & say, yes the base sand is what you want in an aquarium for gravel & for your plants.
...............

I bought the paver base today & brought it home & looked at it. It is NOT what I saw that day! This stuff is just grey sand with large rocks in it. Guess I need to make one more trip & see if I can find that mystery substrate.
................

Made my last trip today. I got a sack of pea gravel. It looks like what I saw that day except minus the sand. I give up on what I saw. Maybe it was just an odd sack. Anyway, this gravel is great for a tank. It has all different sizes of gravel in it, & is natural. The End

Elt you can use regular sand in freshwater, just make sure it is not sand collected from a salt water source such as a beach. If it is your PH will be off the scale on the upper end. Good for some Cichlids, but not good for most freshwater species. You cant use a UGF as the sand is too fine for it, and if you use an internal filter, and the filter intake is on the bottom, you will pickup sand into the filter. HOB's are the best choice for a sand substrata as long as the intake tube is at least 6 inches above the sand layer.

You will pick up Sand if you do a vacuum of the substrata but this amount will be negligible. The only real problem with sand comes in the fact that it easily becomes compacted and has to be stirred to prevent this on a regular basis.

mts.gif" border="0"> I vote do you?
My Tanks at Photobucket

That sand substrate idea is really kool. Could a person do something like that in a little betta bowl?

Thanks for the info LogansLeathers. I should have asked before I setup my new tank. (I didn't know about this website then) Well, if I'm ever up for a huge change, at least I know I can use sand. I love the look of it in fish tanks. Looks more natural to me. I guess my guys will be stuck with the creekstone look for a while until I'm up to the job of switching everything out.

I have done it before, and It does look cool. I find the creek sand is the best substrata I have ever used. Plus if you get it from the right spot, not only is it free but you get some freshwater clams as well.

I dont use it now because I dont have access to it. Course if you get it from a natural source you do risk getting parasites with it, but to me the risk is well worth the results.

mts.gif" border="0"> I vote do you?
My Tanks at Photobucket

Boiling the sand should kill most any parasites, around half an hour of rapid boiling should be enough. I'd suggest using an old saucepan. Go out to goodwill or any thrift store if you don't have one. Do NOT use the households non stick sausepan, or any shiny new sauce pans. Not only will boiling sand ruin the pan but if it's non stick (black on the insides) you risk getting the teflon broken off by the sand and into the tank. Lately there've been a number of arguments for teflon once broken causing cancer ect.

As for sand with a betta, I'd be carefull with it. Some bettas have a habit of trailing their back fin which isn't surprising considering the weight. Once that back fin starts dragging across the sand you could end up with a very short tailed betta. This of course would depend on the fish.

^_^

Ok, since I don't have sand now, I'm worried when I am ready to add fish to the new tank because I've read that you can't have larger gravel if you want corys in the tank because it will wear down their barbels. Is this true? Does anyone have any thoughts? I would be bummed if I couldn't add corys. I kinda had my heart set on them.

Thanks!

I've had corys with pea gravel before no problem.

I actually lost them after switching to sand. Even with weekly movment of the sand and MTS in the tank to turn the sand over, and having only a thin layer of sand the corys still managed to find anerobic pockets and kill themselves. silly fishies .

^_^