Gravel Out!

[thecoolguy]

ok - so i did something quite drastic - i took out all my gravel in my fully
cycled - stocked - 30gal.....

stupid - perhaps - but i am hoping for the best, and thought that i would post my logic.....

cycling:
1) ammonia (simulates fish poo)
2) nitrites
3) nitrates
4) good to go

now, in my tank - i still have

1) same filter media with the good bacteria
2) some large rocks that may house some
3) 3-4 pieces of driftwood that may contain some

so did i just totally mess up my water parameters? A lot of the gravel content is ammonia causing poop residue in my opinion - so i have just removed the dirty.....but of course, now i probably will need to vacuum out the accumulating poop more often - but that is not an issue for me.....

in my opinion - if i continuously (meaning every other day) vacuum out the poop along with approx. 5-10% of the water - i am removing the source of bad ammonia and leaving room for cleaner/clearer water? am i wrong here?

anyways.....here is a pic! hope you like it......

by the way, the residents are: 1 common, 1 albino, 1 RES, 2 dwarf gouramis

[Nautilus29]

IDK if thats a smart choice exp with gouramis in the tank. They are disease prone and If anything goes wrong they could get stressed out and end up with diseases.

[jeffs99dime]

i would remove part of it over time, but not all.

[thecoolguy]

so far, everyone seems happy with the change - everyone is eating, and quite active in a healthy manner....

plec's are quite hardy so i will be watching the dwarf's very closely to see if there is any behavior change or obvious sickness .....

ill keep you guys posted on how this change goes....

[Severus]

You might be alright, but as you know the only fish i might be worried about are the dwarfs

[Lady Hobbs]

I removed my gravel once and decided to try all stones as you have. The problem I had was trying to clean the bottom up. You can't put a gravel vac in those stones and cleaning for me caused me to remove them again. It does look nice, tho, and let's face it, there's no gravel in any of the tanks at the fish stores.

[cocoa_pleco]

let's face it, there's no gravel in any of the tanks at the fish stores.

All of my lfs's use gravel. Some superpets have display tanks too, not for sale. They have a big variety of fish in them. Only wal-mart never had gravel, but they got rid of fish

[Gelo_USA]

it does look cooll only with those rocks but its going to be a pain to vaccum cause ur gonna need to move all of themm everytime u vacuum

cocoa and hobbs: the place where I get my fish here have gravel on all tanks but the tanks where they have the plants for sale and walmart has gravel too

[cocoa_pleco]

seattles had lots of gravel. Im glad my wal-mart got rid of their fish. There was so much crap on the bottom of their tanks that i honestly figured it was sand for 5 years

[CanadianFiero]

Pets Unlimited here in Nova Scotia, Canada all have gravel in there fish tanks, and they also have two big display tanks also.
I think that gravel itself makes an aquarium looking incredible if you match the colors right.
Good Luck with everything!:19:

[Lady Hobbs]

Guess I was wrong on that one. The two places I go don't have it in their tanks so I assumed most didn't. I do believe you should have at least some to hold your biological factor, tho. And food and poop laying in the bottle on glass doesn't look too keen, either.