FishProfiles.com Message Forums

So get this. Management informs me that we are to take all the gravel out of our feeder goldfish system because it "holds bacteria and things".

I'm burst out laughing when I first heard this, then I realized they were serious...

GAH!!!

I'm so adjective, I verb nouns!

theyre right you know. Gravel does contain bacteria and things.

be sure to tell them that water would contain the same bacteria and things.

tell them they should take off their skin as well

---

"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

Perhaps they meant parasites and things

Twits.

They will need 2-4 sponge filters to make up for it.

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

give 'em my number... i'll tell 'em what's up. did you explain why that would be probably one of the worst things they can do?

Last edited by Fallout at 29-Sep-2004 15:40

Umm.... the "bacteria and things" are GOOD for the tank. They take "chemicals and things" that are BAD for the tank OUT!

EDIT: though during my short time working at a pet store, our feeder tanks did not have any gravel, they did have quite a nice sump and trickle filter... it was ok, only for feeders...

Plus for a feeder tank, why on earth do you care about disease/parasites? 1, you go through the stock about once a week and 2, good aquarists know that getting feeder goldies will inevitably bring disease to their tanks and avoid them like the plague (unless they're lucky enough to have a source of pond fish culls)...

Last edited by superlion at 29-Sep-2004 16:30

><>

Gravel is not the best thing to have in a feeder system, just because of the cleaning. All the feeders are stressed like crazy and excrete a slime which boosts the ammonia level in the tank. This slime coats EVERYTHING! the last thing you want to do is give this slime more surface area making it REALLY hard to get rid of when it comes to that time of week(2 times a week) to do a water change.

We had gravel in those tanks for six years (I've been there for four) and never had problems cleaning. And as for the feeders and diseases, a lot of people here buy our feeder fish (especially the bigger, three inch size) for ponds and stuff, so we of course want them to be healthy. They don't all get eaten!

We do have an excellent filter... with an O2 reactor, large carbon vessel, fluidized bed... though with over 1800 large comets and over 1500 small, we still have problems of course, especially since the gravel got taken out IMHO.

And the slime sticks to everything, yah...

I'm so adjective, I verb nouns!

I;ve never seen any goldfish system, feeder or otherwise with gravel. The shops only use gravel in their fancy goldfish display tanks, not their regular goldfsih systems.

-------------------------------------------------
I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions