Substrate setup question

[brendonjw]

Hi Everyone,

I have just purchased a 2nd hand tank to have a bit of a play around with aquascaping. It has come full of used black sand. I have been watching youtube vids from MD and i see that he puts gravel under his sand for all his builds.

Since im going to pull this apart and put some pool sand in with some of the existing black sand to ligthen it a bit i was wondering if i should be putting some gravel under it too? (I'm not sure on the benefits or the reasoning behind doing it.)

Its a 150l tank and ill be doing a small slop from back to front. Still working out plants but the tank came with some healty anubus so thats a good start.

Cheers

 

[Byron]

There is no benefit to having gravel under the sand, and in fact it is not advisable becaue the sand being finer grains will sink down and fall to the bottom with th3e larger grain gravel on top. I don't know who or what "MD" is, but this is not very intelligent. Maybe the "gravel" is some form of plant medium? Depending upon intended fish, still not advisable, same problem. And substrate fish like cories, loaches, some cichlids will dig and mess things up even more, plus the gravel may well harm such fish.

If you use sand, use one consistent sand. And be careful of mixing different colour sands, this can be less than satisfactory. If you want an inexpensive lighter sand, get a bag of quality play sand. Never use white sand (most pool filter sand is white, bad choice for fish).

 

[brendonjw]

There is no benefit to having gravel under the sand, and in fact it is not advisable becaue the sand being finer grains will sink down and fall to the bottom with th3e larger grain gravel on top. I don't know who or what "MD" is, but this is not very intelligent. Maybe the "gravel" is some form of plant medium? Depending upon intended fish, still not advisable, same problem. And substrate fish like cories, loaches, some cichlids will dig and mess things up even more, plus the gravel may well harm such fish.

If you use sand, use one consistent sand. And be careful of mixing different colour sands, this can be less than satisfactory. If you want an inexpensive lighter sand, get a bag of quality play sand. Never use white sand (most pool filter sand is white, bad choice for fish).

Thanks for the reply,

is one of his videos on his setups (skip to 5 mins 30 and you can see him putting bigger gravel underneath, im wondering if that is just a easier way to raise the back?

Oh and i meant playground sand not pool sand sorry, i dont want anything too white. I'm trying to go for a slightly more natural look, stocking will be corys and harlequin rasboras with maybe some honey gouramies.

 

[Byron]

He say the large driveway gravel in cloth bags is for height. Driveway gravel, like any gravel from a road, is not safe regardless. Anyway, back to the issue, sand and gravel will mix due not just to possible digging fish, but the natural water flow. Water percolates down through the substrate, where it is heated (due to bacterial processes) and then rises back up into the aquarium (warm water like warm air rises, cold falls). This too causes a mixing of substrate materials that are different. You can silicone some sort of barrier to the bottom glass, but that seems a lot of work when sand, which is so inexpensive, does the job.

 

[FishHobby99]

I put ~1“ of tan gravel over a 3” layer of playground sand. looked very cool from the sides. I tend to vacuum up too much sand & thought the gravel layer would be easier to clean & may anchor plants better. However, I decided 8 tanks was enough and later dismantled the tank. It did look quite pretty though with the layered substate & all those plants.

 

[brendonjw]

He say the large driveway gravel in cloth bags is for height. Driveway gravel, like any gravel from a road, is not safe regardless. Anyway, back to the issue, sand and gravel will mix due not just to possible digging fish, but the natural water flow. Water percolates down through the substrate, where it is heated (due to bacterial processes) and then rises back up into the aquarium (warm water like warm air rises, cold falls). This too causes a mixing of substrate materials that are different. You can silicone some sort of barrier to the bottom glass, but that seems a lot of work when sand, which is so inexpensive, does the job.

Thanks, i realised that the sand would have slowly filtered down around the gravel just wasnt sure if there was any other benefits, i'll have a play around with the sand it came with over xmas and if i dont like how dark it is get some playground sand.