Before And After Piccies Of My Aquarium

[jenny6165]

this is wot my aquarium looked like when i first got it about 3 or 4 weeks ago...

this is wot it looks like now..
got some new stuff for it, put it some more real plants and a back drop... im still open to suggestions tho

im tempted to get rid of the fake rock thing and put in some real slate stuff, or make a hideaway out of some rocks.

 

[SugarQube]

Really nice tank what a difference

 

[sparky_555]

Good improvement, if it was me though i would change the current gravel to sand or a more natural looking gravel.

 

[Mr.September15]

I would change it some dark colored sand.

 

[Tsi_User]

Good improvement, if it was me though i would change the current gravel to sand or a more natural looking gravel.

Agreed, the new setup looks alot more natural, but would look great with natural sand or gravel.

 

[Bloo]

Massive immprovement Looks awesome

 

[iroc]

It looks way better, I agree with everyone else that changing the gravel out would be a really drastic and good change, I will meation that I would go with a nutral colored gravel or sand since it doesn't loo from the pics like you have very much light and from my experence when you go dark it makes the dark look very dark unless you have a lot of light. Also I would think you should do that before you get to many more plants so your not uprooting them as soon as they get settled

 

[dasmall1]

I agree with using a different, more natural color gravel. Otherwise, great change!

 

[Gankutsuou]

How many gallons in the tank? stocking? LxWxH? fish?

Because we might be able to help some bottom dwellers in there or help any current ones!

Sand substrate owns!

 

[wei0204]

Great improvement, from an artificial one to a more natural one.

I am totally agree with the suggestions from members to change the colourful stones to some sand or gravel. As this could make it looks more natural and could let you plant more real plants. I would suggest to plant some taller plants at the both side of the tank.

Great work!

 

[cleekdaFish]

ya , nice tank , just change the ground substrate to sand

 

[jenny6165]

yeh it suddenly went really dark when i added the background, dont mind toomuch tho, it looks alot better now.

i really want to change to a more natural gravel for definate. should i use gravel or sand, or is it down to preference.

i do have fish in my tank at the mo, so dont want to disturb them too much. is it possible to do like change a bit at a time. ie take out a quarter of the gravel and change with natural gravel, then do another quarter so i dont have to disturb the fish too much. i dont have a spare tank to put them in

 

[Bloo]

It's mostly down to preference, but most (general community) fish prefer sand - and almost certainly all bottom dwellers. Check out the pinned topics on sand and how to maintain it and how to go about switching over. Another big tank change so soon is not good though, so give it a few months.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah it's mostly down to personal taste. if you want real plants then sand is best, although some people do have sucess with gravel. just get the smallest you can if you do go with it.

bottom dwellers almost always prefer sand, just softer for them to play in.

some fish also use sand to clean out they're gills, they'll suck it up and spit it back out through them.

sand is harder to keep 'looking' clean as the waste sits on the top of it. so you need to keep vaccing to keep a very clean look. But that's no bad thing, it'll make your tank much healthier if you keep on top of it. With gravel you can't see the waste so it's easy to ignore and can lead to an unhealthy tank. but again you can have a healthy tank with gravel, just you don't have the visual reminder when you need to clean it so you need to be a bit more pro-active.

 

[Gankutsuou]

Plants do better in gravel, I'm prety darn sure, as gravel captures things like fish poo for nutrients better, and roots dig into it much much better.