Question About Gravel

[lynnavi]

Well, I got my tank tonight, second hand, I also got a bucket of gravel with it. Do I need to rinse the gravel first or just put it in, the gravel is sitting in water. He had moved his fish into a lot bigger tank, looked great.

 

[VespertineStar]

I'd give it a quick rinse in case there is any fish poop left in it.

 

[lynnavi]

Thank you, but when your used to picking dog poop up, fish poop not so bad
Another question can you use rocks from the river and would you just rinse them before use?

 

[bagu]

give them a really good scrub mate! try boiling them
or biol the kettle and scrub!

a good test also, put a drop of vinegar on the rock; if it fizzes its bad, if nothing happens its good

 

[VespertineStar]

As far as I know you should boil them if they are small enough for about 20 mins (hopefully someone will come along and correct me if I'm wrong ) You might also want to check if it's OK for you to remove the rocks first too.

EDIT: *makes note in book* fizzing not good, not fizzing good. Good advice!

 

[Sean W.]

i boil anything that i put in my tank that wont ruin it by boiling it...

 

[CKutz]

if you are starting fresh and going to do a fishless cycle, you may want to consider doing nothing to the gravel.

use it to start out the tank.
Although not much bacteria lives in gravel compared to in a filter, some does. having any bacteria to jumpstart your cycle will help a lot.

when i set up my tank, i used the other guys gravel (also second hand) and people suggested it was the reason my tank cycled so fast. my cycle was done in like two weeks.

his gravel was red, and i thought it was pretty ugly. but it really helped the cycle along.

 

[lynnavi]

Hi, thank you everyone, did some more reading and decided just to use gravel as it is, instead of rinsing.

Didn't know you had to ask if you wanted to take some rocks, we are going to the forest tomorrow with the dog, I guess we can ask in the information centre.

No problem boiling them, got a very big jam pan.
Can you use driftwood as well, would you just boil that too. Had a look at some mopani today and it was as flat as a pancake, not what I'm looking for.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Unfortunately the mopani and bogwood that's usually sent to shops is pretty naff. Driftwood, it depends what you find, but personally I wouldn't use it (salt/other contamination, floats for ages, no idea what type of wood it is).

I would definitely reccomend keeping an eye out on eBay or the like for redmoor wood, it's very branchy. There are a few other branchy woods around but seem less common.

 

[lynnavi]

Brilliant, I have two ornaments that came with the tank but I prefer a more natural look, I'll have a look at the redmoor wood, does it stain the water like the mopani.

 

[OohFeeshy]

A bit, but you hardly notice it after a while. You can always go for the old 'carbon and water changes' approach if you're that bothered.