Gravel size....

[eel man]

I've gotton a hold of a 180 gallon tank. And I went to a landscaping place to get the gravel since I did not want to spend $300.00 USD on gravel so instead it was $22.50 But the smallest gravel they had was kind of large some as much as 3/8 of an inch across and about 1/3 of it pea sized. Is this cause for concern? Because the food might sink between the pieces of gravel? Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[eel man]

Ooops I forgot to say that I got 300 pounds of gravel not that it matters but. I have one more question... On the 180 that I'm setting up there are quite a few scratches. Most of them very shallow but not all of them. The really light ones cover almost the whole front of the tank and I know on glass tanks once you fill them the scratches seem to dissapear to a certain extent and I'm wondering if it works the same way with acrylic Because this tank is not gonna be filled up for a while. And I've heard of acrylic scratch remover kits are these worth my while?

 

[Balance]

as for the gravel size, it depends on whats going in the tank.

something like a larger bottom feeding catfish might not have a problem getting to the food.

something small like ghost srimp or crabs might do fine as long as they dont get trapped under some gravel.

and if your planning on planting the tank, i've read at a number of places that many plants roots wont do as well in larger gravel.....

hope that helps a little!

 

[eel man]

For bottom fish since this is what will eat off the gravel, a school of clown loaches and yo yo loaches and some type of medium sized catfish like maybe 5 pictus cats, some balas and maybe some type of eel like tire track or peacock eel. Anyone know about the scratched tank its got me really worried that its gonna take away from the tank when finished. I'm having a contractor build me a stand and canopy anyone got some links for blue prints for these? He told me he could do better than $380.00 for the stand and $220.00 for the canopy which is the price my lfs told me. Thanks in advance.

 

[Balance]

easiest way to check out the scratches when the tank has water in it. I've never had an acrylic tank, but that's one of the biggest problems with them....

i've used acrylic in engineering projects though, and i've never had a problem using the scratch removal kits. but if a scratch is too deep there probably wont be any good way to get it out