Substrate

[almost_naze]

First off, hi all! second, i just got my first tank since i was a kid. Its a 55 gal., and i'm in the market for "substrate", or gravel i suppose it is. I want to get khuli loaches or something similar, and i read they like to burrow, but hard gravel will hurt them. I don't want that, but i don't really know what to put in to make them comfortable.

Top Fin® Aquarium Gravel - 2 and 5 lbs - Décor - Fish - PetSmart

gravel like that is about all i have acess locally, and it just seems like it would hurt the little guys. any ideas where and what i should get? also, down the road i'd like to try my hand at growing plants as well.

thanks!

 

[dkpate]

I started with the EXACT same gravel when I first had my Kuhli's. I thought the same thing as you, so I switched over to pfs (pool filter sand). I got a 50lb bag of pfs at Ace Hardware for $11. My Kuhli's don't burrow, the only thing I have noticed them doing, is "digging" with their front fins in the sand.

 

[almost_naze]

NO WAY! lol, it is pretty. and thanks for the fast reply. does the sand make the water all mucky? like cloudy i suppose is what i mean? i thought maybe i could get a bag of the rocks and mix it mostly with sand, so it wasn't boring looking.

on a side note, how much gravel per water do you put in your tank? i have heard you put in 2 lbs per gallon, 1 lb per gallon, and another theory said multiply width and length then cut off the last digit, which would mean i'd need 62 lbs of gravel. I'm confused!

thanks again!

 

[dkpate]

If you rinse the crap out of it, it should not make your water cloudy. Mine didn't get cloudy. I have beach glass mixed in with my sand, so it actually looks like a real beach.
As to how much, I just put enough in to make 1-2 inches on the bottom, so I could bury my plants and decor. When I filled my 75G, I used the whole 50lbs. I bought another bag for my 20G, and was able to also use some in the 10G and 5G, and still have over a 1/2 a bag leftover.

 

[BigJim]

Play sand has a lot of character to it. Mine is a light tan color with bigger black and white chunks in it and it's $3 for 50lb at Home Depot.

My khulis love it. They actually take mouthfuls of sand and filter it out through their gills.

I put the whole 50lb bag in my 29g and the sand is about 4" deep. If you use the whole bag, you'd end up with about 2.5" of sand depth.

 

[mgamer20o0]

there lots of options out there you have to stop thinking about fish items and start looking other places. i started with pea gravel from lowes 50 pounds $2.50. i have used pool filter sand play sand soil master select.... want to try out color quartz and so on.