Substrate or not?

[angelkitty]

I've seen pics of everyone's tanks on here and there are quite a few who don't have any substrate. I was thinking about removing the gravel in my tank thinking that vacuuming would be so much easier w/o gravel and I would be sure to get all the plant matter, poop, etc.

I have two large pieces of driftwood with java ferns and java moss and that would still look nice in there...

Good idea or not? Is there any reason to have gravel if I don't have rooted plants? I think I read somewhere that "good" bacteria builds in the gravel? I have an Eclipse carbon/biowheel combination filter.

:confuse1:

[bigbettadan]

It is always much easier to keep the tank clean without gravel. Gravel's purpose is more for decoration, unless you have a planted tank. An alternative is to pot plants(I did it with amazon swords when I raised discus) then place them in the tank.

Dan

[angelkitty]

Thanks Dan - I was pretty sure it was mostly for decoration. Several years ago I did that and put small to medium sized pebble/rocks around the bottom. I also added some clear glass bowls with about half inch of gravel for artificial plants (didn't have live plants then). However, after about a month everything seemed to start getting green algae on it and it was ugly and a pain to clean.

I think next water change I will try loosing the gravel and see what it looks like....

Thanks!

[SeaWitch]

Don't remove all your gravel at once. Most of the good bacteria lives in your filter pads, but there is some in your gravel. What I would do is bag it up in pantyhose and then remove one bag a week until it is all gone. That way, you don't have a cycle bump. I agree, barebottom tanks are so much easier to keep clean!

[jinyu_fan]

Whether there should be substrate or not is for decorative reasons and subject to personal taste. The only tank I have bare bottom is the quarantine tank. All my other tanks have at least an inch of gravel; I just find a bare bottom tank too sterile in appearance.

[WakinAZ]

I just like giving the goldfish something that satisfies their natural rooting/foraging behavior. I've tried bare bottom with various species, and it just didn't do it for me. I only vacuum one half of the tank each week, and at a one inch or less depth the fish keep the particulates mostly churned up and getting sucked up by the filters.

The venerable Bob Fenner has some interesting thoughts about substrates: http://wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwsubstrates.htm

Eric "who likes 'natural looking' gravel"

[sweetshannon]

I tried bare bottom, but went back to gravel. I use larger gravel, and a very think layer. You can see the bottom through it in spots. I like this look much better, for now.