How Much Gravel?

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dant1875

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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
 
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 :rolleyes: ) if you wanted to plant up.
 
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 :rolleyes: ) if you wanted to plant up.

Phew - thought you knew me for a minute there :lol: 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...
 
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.
 
thanks Colin :good: I've got enough time to have a mooch about & decide for definite so all help is much appreciated :D
 

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