Help with gravel!

[Heartgrave]

I had a really big Angelfish, huge plecostomus, 2 red tip sharks, and a beautiful blue colored Gourami. Needless to say, the northeast united states was hit by really bad weather and I lost power for 6 days and they all died from the cold. I thought I would take this opportunity to re-design my tank. I have black and blue gravel currently but I just want to go with solid black. After checking many different black gravel products, I see everyone posting that the gravel chips, makes the water murky, causes black particles to rest on decorations and plants. I can deal with the murky water but the black chips I'm not fond of. The purpose of this post is to find suggestions for what gravel to use for my purpose. I do not have and do not plan on getting live plants. Tank is 55 gallon. Thank you!

Side note.... spell check? :p

[Delapool]

Hello, I've not noticed this with gravel but could be different products. Mainly I just make sure the gravel is rounded and fine grained.

[Autumnsky]

Really so sad to hear of the losses of your fish. Very sorry for your losses.

Have you considered sand?

Or other substrate which can be used, like Black Diamond blasting sand (used for sand blasting) which is actually coal slag and safe for aquariums and quite inexpensive for substrate, found at farm supply stores, cheap.

[Heartgrave]

Thanks for the replies. Sorry, I do not like the idea of sand, I just see it being a mess plus getting sucked up into the python cleaner?

[dcj]

Dennerle do a range of black gravel that isn't dyed or painted. They have shrimp specific gravel & a small grain too which isn't as light as sand but not as coarse or sharp as regular gravel