Underwater Gravels - Yes Or No?, Bare Tank Vs Tank With Gravel Options

[gohks]

----Post splitted from 'Trojan's SVR'-------


There is a long debate of harm or benefits of sand/pebbles bed and I think this subjectivity still stays. Having the pebbles bed infact is good if it is setup correctly and infact will minimize your chore of water change (practical for minimum water change). I have tried both and let me share with you my own experience:-
i) I used to have a bare tank (6ft) with just goldfishes powered by external overhead and canister filter (both mechanical & bological setup). No pebbles or rocks were in there as I believed it causes maintainence headache (usual believe).Greedy guy like me tend to overstock the fishes (don't like to disclose the no. as it against the practice here). I found to have great trouble maintaing the tank. The water condition is always cloudy and brownish (think insufficient biological bateria thriving) no matter how often I changed it (goldfishes are damn dirty animal!). Imagine I have to do at leat 50 - 100% water change weekly on a 6ft tank, that is really a task for a busy and amateur guy like me.
ii) After much consultation and research, some guru recommend me to have undergraval filter covered with pebbles (pebbles much be right size, not to cause any hazard to the goldfish). As I am dead tired of maintaing and upkeeping the tank, I decided to give it a try. I added in the under-graval filter powered by a strong power-head, in addition to the external filter I have. To my very surprise, the water stays crystal cleared after stablization, even with the same amount of fishes and no matter how much I fed them (with any kind of food that may cloud the water!!). I think the beneficial baterial has thrived well on the pebbles bed, much oxygenated by the water-flow through the undergraval filter and the bed. However, I still have one headache, the pebbles/sands are very difficult to maintain, debrics stuck and I have to vacuum the bed frequently.
iii) Fed-up of this tedious chore, I did more research and found the "Reversed flow" methodology (must be used with the external filter) (instead of sucking the water from the undergraval filter, it pumping water into it, forcing the debrics out to be filter by external filters) and this really works for me!! However, debrics still can be pumped into the bottom graval plate and could choke the system.
iv) Lately, I further improved by changing to two-way powerhead (flows can be reversed) to pump and suck routinely, to counter the aboves debrics accumumation problem. I also added in a UV light ozonizer to get rid of the algae problem (my water very purified and cleared after this addition).

Currently, I change water rarely, just need to top-up the water lost and clean the algae on the glass and are very happy with my current setup (with an overly stocked tank!!). My water conditions are maintained at:-
ammonia: 0
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 0 (I added some hardy plants and have algae/mosses on the rocks to elimiate that).
PH: 8.5
Salinity: 0.18%
Temp: 29 - 30C

I strongly believe in biological/mechanical filtration (no chemical means). Very importantly, the beneficial baterial must thrive well. The UV light ozonizer (previoulsy used mainly for outdoor ponds) is also needed. All these lead to a "Crysal Cleared" tank + Minimum maintainance!!

I wrote this not to stir-up a debate, but just to share on some of my success story. This methodology is my personal preference and proven to work for me. I promote practicality here for amateur and busy hobbiest who have other committment. Cannot imagine having to do 50 - 100% water change weekly for a > 4ft tank, or having a green water in a flat, just to upkeep the fish (cannot sustain and sooner or later you will feel tire of this hobby and think of giving up, believed some of the brothers here are having the same kind of feeling). ;)

This post has been edited by CP: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 12:55 pm