How Much Gravel?

[dant1875]

I've recently bought a new (much bigger) tank & I'm considering going from sand to black gravel as a sustrate. The tank dimensions are 48" long by 12" wide by 18" deep - how big a bag of gravel would I need for it? I'm assuming that an 8kg bag would easily be big enough, but don't want to overdo it if that's way too much lol.
Thanks in advance
Dan

 

[thefubar]

practical fishkeeping magazine (a good subscription mag) has a website too. It has a substrate calculator which says your tank would need 16Kg of pea shingle for 1 inch depth.

I needed 12kg of sand for a 39" tank, that had a 1.5" to 2" depth though. You might find you are a bit shallow (gravel that is - not a moral standpoint observation ) if you wanted to plant up.

 

[dant1875]

practical fishkeeping magazine (a good subscription mag) has a website too. It has a substrate calculator which says your tank would need 16Kg of pea shingle for 1 inch depth.

I needed 12kg of sand for a 39" tank, that had a 1.5" to 2" depth though. You might find you are a bit shallow (gravel that is - not a moral standpoint observation ) if you wanted to plant up.

Phew - thought you knew me for a minute there I'm thinking of maybe getting some of the laterite substrate to put under the gravel? i can always get more gravel if I need to - found a great place on the net selling Roman Gravel for £1.97 per 2kg...

 

[Colin_T]

You use about 5kg of gravel for every square foot and that will give you about 2inches in depth.
In a 4foot x 12inch tank you will need at least 20kgs to give you a 2inch layer across the base. If you want to grow plants then you want a 3-4inch layer of gravel.
You can add laterite (red clay) to the bottom of the tank and then put the gravel over the top. A half inch of laterite covered with 3inches of gravel will be fine for lots of different types of plants.

 

[dant1875]

thanks Colin I've got enough time to have a mooch about & decide for definite so all help is much appreciated