Freshwater

Chapter 5: What to Put and What Not to Put in Your Tank
Keep an aquarium’s colors simple and natural looking for the best results. You
can get away with a few cool plastic decorations such as treasure chests and
scuba divers, but shocking-pink gravel is too much of an eyestrain for both
you and your fish (if you wake up one morning to find your fish sporting sunglasses,
you know you need to tone down your gravel). Neon gravels may also
keep your fish from spawning and make them shy away and hide in corners.
Gravel size and the perils of sand
Choose the size of your gravel carefully to avoid water fouling. Avoid the
larger-shaped materials because they allow food and waste to fall between
the pieces, where they can cause serious water problems in a short time
because they are hard to vacuum out and reduce water flow. If you use an
undergravel filter (you can read all about them in Chapter 6), choose a
medium-size substrate (the size of regular bagged aquarium gravels) so that
the plastic plates don’t get clogged with gravel that is too fine. If using sand, a
hang-on-tank powerfilter would be a better choice.
Gravel with a particle size of 1 ⁄8 inch works best for most setups.
Larger granules also have a cumulatively smaller surface area because of
their shape, and don’t allow space for the growth of the proper bacteria for
biological filtration. Let us put it this way — if you think you can break a
window at 10 feet with a piece of your aquarium gravel, then it is too large for
your tank, and might be better used to pave your driveway.
Small-grained substrates such as sand quickly clog the water flow in your
aquarium if they slip down into the undergravel filter plate and can subsequently
cause a rise in waste. So if you decide to use sand in your aquarium,
lay it down in a very thin layer or have a mesh plate beneath it to stop it from
falling through into the filter.
If you can’t find the right size of substrate at your local pet store, either order
some on the Internet or wait until it becomes available from your dealer. A
little bit of patience can definitely save you many headaches in the future.
Here are a couple good Web sites where you can purchase gravel:
www.aquariumguys.com/aquarium-gravel.html
www.customaquatic.com/
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