What do we really need?

Nilet699

yeah i thought the golden nugget got a little bigger than the others, i knew they were suitable for my 55.

the Bristlenose Pleco and queen arabesque though only attain around 5 inches tops, so good choices. And that queen is gorgeous! plecos though like loaches Prefer sand, as any sharp gravel can hurt them. (told you to get sand! nur! haha)

Looking forward to tomorrows advances

Fishybusiness

Oh man!!!! I showed him the bristlenose and queen arabesque pleco's and the kuhli loaches and he LOVES them! So do I. Great!
The gravel I got doesn't have sharp edges and the top layer is made of smaller pebbles. I'm wondering how far off it would be to add loaches or pleco's (when the tank is ready of course).
I know they do best in sand but I've seen a lot of pics of them in gravel ...some acctually bigger than mine.
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Nilet699

Your looking at waiting a few weeks really now before adding anything else. Let your tank cycle and the bacteria really start to establish in your substrate before more. If you rush you'll over tax things now. Patience is the name of the game

Fishybusiness

No issue in waiting. Don't worry.

I'm just really considering them as an option with the gravel we have since I'm seeing lots of people who've done it online... Apparently with the loaches I'd have to make sure the intake and output of the filters are covered since they are prone to trying to go in there and end up dead...
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Byron

I would carefully think through any of these fish. Now is the time to change the substrate if that is going to be better for the planned fish.

It is very true that many fish can cope with unsuitable substrates, but that shouldn't mean that any of us continue to do this. For years I kept corys in tanks with fine-grain gravel. They seemed OK, and for all I know they may have been so. But having changed to sand two years ago, and now seeing their behaviours, I wish I'd done it sooner.

A fish like the Kuhli Loach loves to burrow down into the sand; this is an essential part of its natural behaviours. If this species is intended, a sand substrate is best. And by the way, they spend a lot of time hidden. When you see them charging around in the bare store tank, that is because they are stressed out of their minds over their inadequate surroundings.

Byron.

Fishybusiness

Thanks guys. Would adding sand to a portion of the tank work or would we have to change the entire thing?

Byron

This is possible, but substrates will mix together over time unless they are well separated in a permanent manner.

When I was preparing to change the substrate in my 5-foot tank from fine gravel to sand 2 years ago, I considered something like this. I thought a deeper enriched substrate along the back (for the large sword plants) sloping down to a nice sand streambed along the front would be ideal to create an Amazonian riverbank setup. But the problem was keeping the two divided, and the only way to do this is with a barrier of some sort that is siliconed to the tank bottom glass and the side walls. There is a continual flow of water down through the substrate, and this plus the force of gravity will level out and mix the substrate. In my sand and gravel tanks, the nice terracing effect I create with heavy chunks of rock initially look wonderful, but within a few months the sand or gravel behind the rocks is lower and the front is higher. I end up with an even substrate regardless.

Bluewind

He's right. Unless you add a barrier, they eventually mix and the larger will end up on top. It happes no matter how careful you are. It ended up creating a neat effect for me when I added a couple handfulls of rainbow colored gravel to my sand which eventually ended up speckling the top of my substrate.
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beaslbob

+1

I gave up the sloping substrate decades ago. I guess you could use some kind of barrier. I just dodn't

my .02

Fishybusiness

If we were to change to sand, what would it involve?

Draining the tank, uprooting the plants etc? Basically starting from scratch I assume?

I guess this w
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