substrate

[Andi]

Have just treated myself to a pair of pim pictus mine are kinda like these but not a spotty yet.

My substrate is not large but I want to add some finer gravel from my hex (washed/boiled). I don't want to add sand. I am gonna put it around and under a nice peace of bogwood in there. How deep should it be? The 2.5 - 3" that is there already? or just give em an inch?

 

[cichlidmaster]

If I may point out a little known fact (or maybe not so little known)...

Unless you are using a U/G filter I would not recommend a depth of more than 1" of substrate.

This is more than enough to harbor beneficial bacteria. Any more than this is simply going to accumulate detritus and other crap you don't want to accumulate.

Trust me...I used to use between 2-3" of gravel and the crap that would come out of it, even in a lightly stocked tanked was tremendous.

Since I have cut back to only an inch, much less crap has a place to hide.

Plus bacteria really only lives in about the first inch of the substrate anyways.

Anymore than an inch is really for asthetics and in my opinion is detrimental
to a clean and healthy tank.

JMO

 

[slt]

what about a planted tank, i use ipf, i did remove some gravel when i changed from ugf to ipf. but it was'nt deep enough for my plants, so i added more gravel,

 

[cichlidmaster]

A deeper gravel bed is required for a planted tank, but in this conext the plants will help feed of some of the detritus therefore reducing the amount of this considerably.

I sometime overlook the planted tanks since I don't keep thme.

Thanks for bringing this oversight to my attention

 

[slt]

thats quite allright cichlidmaster, you had me worried there lol
what i usualy do is to loosen the gravel around the plants when i do a water change so that any debris floats in the water that i'm syphoning out of the tank,