ew

[sunkissedinCA]

so when i bought jiggy, i ended up buying a 5lb. bag of gravel to put in his bowl that i was also buying. it's the same kind that i've gotten for my other bowls/tanks, but for some reason, this bag is just annoyingly difficult to rinse. i'll rinse it during the water change for a good 20 minutes and it will look ok until the next day, then there is little grody flecks from it floating on the top of the bowl. just outta curiousity, has anybody else had trouble getting their gravel clean?

[Philip The Fish]

eh i had that problem with the tan gravel i got. It made the water cloudy. I figured i'd give it a day or two but when i looked there was like a film on the top of the water. it was so gross.....Im just using those glass rocks now. Gravel can eat it.

[sunkissedinCA]

lol for sure. if i see that that stuff floating ontop tomorrow then i'm going to change to the glass rocks that i have. it will give him more swimming room anyways :)

[dramaqueen]

I'm glad I found this out now. I was thinking of switching to gravel but I don't think so now.

[dr2b]

I've never had that issue with gravel. I have always used gravel (even in my old 10 gallon tank a few years ago).

[bettababe321]

I had that same problem with some blue gravel that I used. No matter how much I rinsed it there were always little blue specs on the surface of the water. I ended up throwing it out and getting white and pink instead i don't know if this has anything to do with it or not but I got it from Walmart, ususally I get mine from Petsmart or Jacks Aquarium so maybe it was just a lower quality or something? It was only like $2.00 so thats what I was thinking. I would really love to switch to sand, I just dont know if I want to deal with cleaning it.

[Vikki81207]

I don't have a problem with it. It's fine. I boiled my gravel, just to be safe. Then rinsed and put in the tank.

[Angelmonster]

I had some trouble with blue gravel having tiny specks floating at the top of my tank, luckily I found this out while filling it for the first time.

throw the gravel in a strainer, like 1/4th of it at a time. Throw it under the water and sift it like you ar elooking for ggold. All the specks shoudl wah away

If you want to cycle the tank use gravel, the glass beads just cause algae unless you do 100% changes every so often and clean them :-/ I always take the lazy route and use gravel with the beads on top haha.

[neenjar]

Originally Posted by Vikki81207

I don't have a problem with it. It's fine. I boiled my gravel, just to be safe. Then rinsed and put in the tank.

You need to be careful with boiling gravel. Many gravels have a enamel like coating on them that weakens when boiled, then can leech in to the water.

If when dry the gravel is shiny it should not be boiled, if when dry it is dull like rocks found in nature then it is safe to boil.

[dramaqueen]

I have some purple gravel that came with a container I bought to use for temporary housing and I thought about using it in one of my tanks. I'm not sure whether I want to use it now. Neenjar, thanks for the info on boiling.