Do I need gravel?

[oneeyedfrog]

Hi, My daughter has three tanks . One tank ( guppies and catfish and several plants) became infested with snails so we removed the gravel to get them all out and we were surprised at the amount of gunk hiding in there. We had done vacuuming every two weeks but obviously not well enough. We are worried that this gunk would have ended up causing the fish harm.

How do you clean gravel properly without disturbing the plants? MY daughter is keen on removing the gravel from all the tanks she

quite likes the idea of a bare bottom tank as you can see if it needs a clean and its so easy.

However how do we keep these plants now? Should we plant them in pots? and what substrate do we plant them in and will they need fertiliser?

Is there any advantages to having gravel?

thanks for your advice.

[JarrenB]

keep the gravel otherwise there will be nothing for the plants to grow in.

[LYNDYLOO]

There will be in every tank that is not a Bare Bottom Tank, places that we cant Gravel Vac, that is normal, I recommend once a year, pulling the Tank apart and cleaning it.

Otherwise Gravel Vaccing, along with water changes every week should be fine.

As JarrenB said you need to have somewhere for the Plants roots to grow.

Lynda

[Caryl]

People like gravel as it looks nicer than having plants just in randomly placed pots.

The 'gunk' in the gravel is what many of the plants feed off. A certain amount is fine and good.

The amount of gunk depends on how many, and what size, fish you have and how often you vacuum it. I clean out my heavily planted tank with no problems. I thoroughly clean the open gravel but around the plants I lightly hold the vac above the plants, or gently push it over the plant to rest lightly on the gravel, to remove the surface gunk only, leaving the rest for the plants.

All my plants are in aquarium gravel and I do not use any fertilisers or additives.

[jim r]

most of my tanks have sand and I have no probs with gunk.(I think it tends to sit on top).

[Billaney]

most of my Non breeding tanks have gravel some plant , it does put the fish at ease

[ryanjury]

Alot of my breeding tanks have no gravel, have noticed that fry grown out in bare bottom tanks grow faster, maybe they can find the food easier maybe because you can easily remove more waste maybe a combination of both.. It is really only there for aesthetics and for growing plants in, there are options for very easy care plants that grow without gravel java fern, java moss, anubais, duck weed and indian fern (looks quite cool floating with roots dangling down) to name a few from my non planty mind.. I have the java fern and java moss in tanks without lighting and they seem to do very well so that's a bigger bonus. If your fish freak out when stuck in a bare bottom tank paint the bottom black it is something I was told recently and it really seems to help the fish settle.

[Caper]

Lyndyloo wrote:

I recommend once a year, pulling the Tank apart and cleaning it.

Hmm, interesting. I don't keep real plants as most know but I do know the "gunk" that can be under the gravel.

I usuallly give my tanks a thorough cleaning once a month which includes removing everything from the tank, well everything except fish and gravel in order to give a really good gravel vac. Now I have some ottos so some ornaments will just be moved so they can keep algae on them if any.

This is the first time I let it go longer than a month. Of course, kept up regular water changes, change cartridges, rinse bio cartridges and so on.

ANYWAY, Lyndyloo the whole point of this 8) :oops: was to ask you what do you mean by taking tank apart?

Caper (yes, I drive myself crazy sometimes with my rambling, shoot doing again!)