# why not gravel?



## cjacob316

i have been using a white dolomite gravel since day one in my all male tank, and have just always been curious as to the actual negatives of it

without breeding or diggers in the tank i don't see the need for sand (some mouth brooders dig a divet to breed in) for that purpose

i understand that the waste tends to sit right on top of the sand making it easier to clean, but i also find it much easier to vaccuum my gravel when i do water changes than my sand tanks

i feel more comfortable about having powerheads right n top of the surface not having to worry about sand being blown. just waste

as long as i do good gravel vacs and try to turn it over every now and then, is there any real point to change to sand? and as t stands i have plenty of gravel in my 55 to effectively cover the bottom of a 75 or 90 when i upgrade, and the majority of my bio filter rests in my substrate as determined by many experiments, so i'd rather tranfer it to the new tank than start with a new substrate


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## Totalimmortal363

After switching to sand I honestly can't stand the sight of gravel. And I don't know too many natural habitats that use the same aquarium gravel sold at the local walmart.


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## cjacob316

my gravel isn't from the local walmart bud

and as for natural, the actual ground cover in bodies of water strictly depends on the depositional regine at which it resides

closer to shore is mostly rock and you can't even touch any semblence of sand, then as you go deeper the deposits will become finer

if you look at rivers it's the same way, there is a point in a river where most of the bed is pea size gravel, did you know that the mississippi river isn't completely a sand bed until just north of baton rouge? north of that point it conatains various sizes of sand and gravel particles, so before you talk about natural just think about it


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## steelers fan

id say if you mix the gravel regularly and are able to vacuum well then theres no reason sand is better. the thing is alot of people are too lazy to do it right so they end up with nitrate issues and cloudy water or nasty looking gravel.


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## RDTigger

cjacob316 said:


> my gravel isn't from the local walmart bud
> 
> and as for natural, the actual ground cover in bodies of water strictly depends on the depositional regine at which it resides
> 
> closer to shore is mostly rock and you can't even touch any semblence of sand, then as you go deeper the deposits will become finer
> 
> if you look at rivers it's the same way, there is a point in a river where most of the bed is pea size gravel, did you know that the mississippi river isn't completely a sand bed until just north of baton rouge? north of that point it conatains various sizes of sand and gravel particles, so before you talk about natural just think about it


Pics..or it is walmart gravel bud... 

That's the beauty of scaping...you can make it look however you want..... even if cotton candy pink/blue gravel makes you happy.. Just don't expect to impress anyone.. :thumb:


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## 748johnd

I have used both and don't mind the sight of either one. However, I prefer using a small grain, darker color gravel. Also, I have had much better luck growing plants in gravel than sand. If I had to chose one or the other I would choose gravel.


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## Guams

cjacob316 said:


> as long as i do good gravel vacs and try to turn it over every now and then, is there any real point to change to sand?


Nope. Just personal preference. 

But, like you mentioned, gravel can hold a significant amount of the biofiltration in a tank, whereas sand probably doesn't.

Again, all personal preference... and too be honest, I'm much happier with sand.

And to add a little bit to your natural deposits post... sand substrates are found in most, I want to say all but I could be wrong, riverways, especially streams with a lot of bends. The inside of the river bend (slower moving water) typically has sandy deposits, whereas that exact same bend will have rock/gravel deposits on the outside (faster moving water).

The section of Wisconsin River that's only a few blocks from me is mostly sand (from the shoreline to at least 20 yards "in stream"). I haven't ventured into the center of the river as it's quite violent, but I would put my money on the presence of large rock.

Lakes are somewhat similar. Finer substrates tend to be swept to the shoreline by the current, whereas larger rocks remain in place. Gravel tends to be somewhere in between. But, there are exceptions... such as lakes with very little current, or lakes being fed and/or drained by rivers.


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## bulldogg7

I'm kinda in between sand and gravel, I love the finer gravels by caribsea
sand scratches tanks even with bladed scrapers if you aren't extremely careful

ivory coast sand, small gravel and aragonite









rio grande, 3-5mm









both are so fine that a regular gravel vac doesn't work, but a little stir usually gets the detritus and stuff suspended and on top to be easily vacuumed up


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## cjacob316

it depends on where in the body of water, i'm a geologist and depostional provences is a big thing with me, the type of bedload is dependent on the current and at higher currents the bottom tends to contain coarser particles because sand grains can't settle out at that velocity, the middle of a lake will be where the most fine particles are, beaches only form when the current (or wave action) is directed back towards shore lines pushing sediment up to the shore, but it's the river deposits that have to place the sand in the lakes first in order to be reworked onto a beach, there are sections of rivers where the entire bottom in covered in larger chunks of rock. the sand may be burried underneath it but the exposed part is all rock

when you can find dolomite at walmart please let me know because it would be sooo much cheaper than where i buy it

if you want to talk about natural, crushed coral is not natural in fresh water, but in salt water it is very natural, there are fish that eat corals and **** out sand, black sand only truely exists in a few places, the only place i know of is hawaii, some lakes are strickly carved into rock formations and the entire bed is one large rock formation, no pebbles no sand


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## DJRansome

Are the dolomite granules smooth or sharp? What about catfish? I first ended up with the substrate I use with catfish bellies and barbels in mind. Now I just like it.


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## wheatbackdigger

I switched from sand back to gravel about a year ago. Never will I go back to sand. Got tired of cleaning the sand out of the filters, tired of all the scratches on my new tank, tired of cleaning sand out of the sink after water changes. Black sand looks unnatural, white sand looks unnatural. I use the Caribsea Peace River gravel now...grains are 1mm-2mm, much more natural look to it. Vacuum every other week, sometimes weekly ... small enough for the cichlids to dig, but large enough to keep out of the filters.

What finally convinced me to switch back to gravel, was when my FX5 started squealing like a stuck pig. Disassembling the motor/pump housing and cleaning that out was a real treat.


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## cjacob316

they like to roll it in their mouth and don't seem to have issues with it, no catfish in my tank


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## Totalimmortal363

Play sand will still be a staple in my tank, I've seen enough national geographic to be convinced that sand seems to rule the underwater world. That and very large rocks.


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## car0linab0y

I used pond pebbles (probably about .5" - 1.25") in my new tank. It was more for functionality than looks, but it looks pretty good too I think. I would've preferred limestone, but at $3+/bag the decision was easy.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/tanks/disp ... tank=20845


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## ssacrew

I figure that the tank should meet the requirements of it's inhabitants, and be aesthetically appealing to me as well. My new tank I'm constructing is going to have black sand. While that may not be geographically correct, it will enhance the colors of my lighter colored fish (hopefully), and be very nice eye candy, while still fulfilling the need for breeding and sifting.


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## webgirl74

I'm just changing over my second tank from gravel to sand and I'm somewhat undecided on the sand. I like the look of it (I'm using pool filter sand in a nice golden color) but I find it harder to keep clean than gravel. In order to get enough suction to clean poop off the surface, I have to get the end of my python right up close to the sand, and I always end up sucking some up. I've always had gravel and like the look of that as well, and there are so many types out there. There are a lot of nice natural looking gravel options and my fish never seemed to mind gravel. I had sort of a medium sized irregular gravel and my peacocks and haps had no troubles moving it around. If you are doing a cichlid tank with smaller species though, I can see the benefits of using sand. I say whatever floats your boat personally. I've seen a lot of gorgeous tanks that use gravel. If you're doing a planted tank, gravel's much better as well with a layer of planting medium underneath :thumb:


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## middlearth

I love the gravel I had in my last tank so much I've been moving it around with me for ten years, waiting to have the chance to set up a new tank! It's a beautiful, multicolored natural pebble, with rounded edges. I wish I knew what it is called. 
I appreciate the discussion- I've been wondering about the recommendations for sand, and about the biological filtration that I always understood was an important function of the gravel. :thumb:


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## DJRansome

It's the fish behavior you don't get to see. They don't *mind *gravel, but until you have them over sand, you don't know you would be missing the behavior.

I have something sort of halfway in-between and get the best of both worlds...fish sift it through their gills yet I can use the Python gravel cleaner.


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## ridley25

cjacob316 said:


> and as for natural, the actual ground cover in bodies of water strictly depends on the depositional regine at which it resides
> 
> closer to shore is mostly rock and you can't even touch any semblence of sand, then as you go deeper the deposits will become finer


Good point here. A significant percentage of the mbuna and small percentage of haps we all keep live in waved-washed rocky regions with little or no sediment at all. But since our tanks aren't 25 metres deep, we pick something so we're not staring at glass!

kevin


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## Ali1

wheatbackdigger said:


> I switched from sand back to gravel about a year ago. Never will I go back to sand. Got tired of cleaning the sand out of the filters, tired of all the scratches on my new tank, tired of cleaning sand out of the sink after water changes. Black sand looks unnatural, white sand looks unnatural. I use the Caribsea Peace River gravel now...grains are 1mm-2mm, much more natural look to it. Vacuum every other week, sometimes weekly ... small enough for the cichlids to dig, but large enough to keep out of the filters.
> 
> What finally convinced me to switch back to gravel, was when my FX5 started squealing like a stuck pig. Disassembling the motor/pump housing and cleaning that out was a real treat.


Likewise here. I've had sand for nearly two years and I'm not pleased with the result. I used 3M Colorquartz Type-S, which seem to be very popular across many forums. I do like the black sand, but cleaning it was not as easy as gravel-cleaning. With gravel, you simply burrow through the gravel and the only concern would be if you piled up too many rocks in the vacuum tube. With sand, I've noticed lots of scratches near the bottom of my tank on the front, back, and sides pane. Cleaning sand in the beginning is simple because everything lies on top of the sand, but overtime, you end up finding out that lots of the debris is actually inside the sand. I try to turn over the sand weekly to get the debris out and although the sand will settle faster than the debris, there's no guarantee that the debris always come on top. The sink is always another concern. As hard as you try not to touch the sand, there's always gonna be a few grains laying in your sink. As for the sulfur smell, i never had that issue. If you own canisters and the intakes are near the bottom, they will clog easier. I guess you can lift the intakes in the mid-region of the tank and let powerheads do the job in keeping the debris always floating around, but then it kicks your sand up too. I like the idea of a bare-bottom tank because its the easiest to clean, but it's not appealing to the eye, so I'm thinking of going tiles.


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## Ali1

DJRansome said:


> It's the fish behavior you don't get to see. They don't *mind *gravel, but until you have them over sand, you don't know you would be missing the behavior.
> 
> I have something sort of halfway in-between and get the best of both worlds...fish sift it through their gills yet I can use the Python gravel cleaner.


I disagree, I had a 8" male red devil that was placed in two different tanks, black sand and black gravel. He loved burrowing through the gravel than the sand. He hardly touched the sand, but he will rearrange the whole tank with the gravel and spend most of his day landscaping the gravel.


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## DJRansome

Sorry I was thinking of cichlids that do have "sand" behaviors. If not then absolutely, gravel!


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## aussy612

I prefer sand, in that it is much easier to get a natural and good looking aquascape. I like how it slopes and can be 'molded' to suit any rocks or driftwood. In my newest tank, i made a sloping pile of flat, almost slatelike, (but white and more irregular, so i guess not like slate at all... :x ) rock, and then filled in all the gaps with sand, so that just the tips of the rock was showing. It looked fantastic. Until my male jaguar decided that he wanted to breed and cleaned the whole thing out .
But more recently, i've noticed that when the sand is disturbed, it sends a fine dust into the water (it was cleaned thoroughly, so its not the dust from the original cleaning), which is kind of a pain to clean out every week. But in general i think that sand is marginally easier to clean.


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## Comic Sans

When I had gravel I would religiously vacuum, digging around and routing out detritus.

Then I swtiched to sand for aesthetic purposes, and during the transition I was SHOCKED at the amount of waste that remained trapped in the gravel, despite vigorous cleaning. I'll grant you that sand has it's drawbacks (I eventually switched to a canister filter, for instance) but I have no doubt my tank is much much cleaner with sand.


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## cjacob316

for my tangs i use sand because of their behavior, but sand is a big pain in the butt, especially with filters, i tried using spong prefilters, but sand still gets into them, and the filters didn't work as well with them on


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## Ali1

I switched from gravel to sand to tile. Much easier to clean, bare bottom tank, but with the color of your choice


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## webgirl74

JMO, but I 'm not too fond of the tile look. Sure, it's easy to clean and maintain, but you get no digging behaviour from the fish, which I think is pretty amusing to watch. The rock piles look "out of place" to me too. But I guess to each his own!


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## glitchysparten

OK so i do prefer the look of sand over gravel although i have always used gravel just because back when i set my tanks up i didn't even consider sand.

but now that my 55g has no fish i am probably going to use sand when i set it up again, i was wondering though if the fish stir it up wouldn't it get sucked into the filter and ruin the impeller?

how would i be able to stop this?


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## DJRansome

Use a heavier grain of sand and avoid the really fine stuff. That's why a lot of people use pool filter sand.


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## smellsfishy1

I agree with DJR, along side using a prefilter on your intake.
Pool filter sand works great and sinks even if it is being thrown around by fish.
Actually I have never even noticed any of it in my prefilter media but they still serve as good insurance for my filters.


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## ridley25

I use play sand in all three of my tanks with no problems but I'm trying PFS next time just because everyone seems to love it so much!

kevin


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## punman

Gravel seems easier to clean than sand but that is only because the garbage settles into the gravel and you can't see it.
With the sand it stays more on top and eventually goes into the filter.

If you don't believe it, take the gravel out of an established tank and take the sand out of an established tank and look at the remaining water in each. Nine times out of ten, the tank with the gravel will have the dirtiest water.


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## Vulcan900

bulldogg7 said:


> I'm kinda in between sand and gravel, I love the finer gravels by caribsea
> sand scratches tanks even with bladed scrapers if you aren't extremely careful
> 
> ivory coast sand, small gravel and aragonite
> 
> rio grande, 3-5mm
> 
> both are so fine that a regular gravel vac doesn't work, but a little stir usually gets the detritus and stuff suspended and on top to be easily vacuumed up


Did you like the look of the Ivory Coast or Rio grande more?


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## Nicky Paul

I have utilized both and wouldn't fret seeing either one. Be that as it may, I favor utilizing a little grain, darker shading rock. Additionally, I have had vastly improved fortunes developing plants in rock than sand. On the off chance that I needed to picked one or the other I would pick rock.


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## Fish Jerk

Well, a true gravel is going to be rather sharp that is the only real drawback as far as I am concerned, and it doesn't matter much for many fish. But most store bought gravel is not sharp, I think people usually just snub it because of the colors.

Personally I use hand gathered, rounded river rocks which vary from about a quarter inch to an inch. Plus a few shells and larger rocks.

I don't fret in the least about stuff under the gravel so long as there's some plants actively growing in there. People work hard to put dirt into planted aquariums after all. I guess that old tank syndrome is a concern but I doubt that is an issue so long as you do regular water changes. Even if your plants eat up all your nitrogen, it still gets other random gunk out of there and it refreshes the trace elements in the water.

I don't really like the look of sand for fresh water, especially that black sand which reminds me of the guy from SNL when he did the Sprockets! skits back in the 90s dressed all in black. Very hipster stuff, that black sand. Maybe for a hawaiian themed reef tank it would be nice but otherwise it seems really off to me.


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## dledinger

Nothing whatsoever wrong with using gravel. I prefer sand because I like the looks. Cleaning can be tougher when it comes to avoiding scratches. Sand will end up on any mag float, rag, sponge or scraper you can put into the tank.


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