http://greatlakesaquaria.com/index.php?/topic/4740-change-out-your-substrate/Posted 12 February 2013 - 12:11 PM
I wanted to share a short story, and let everyone know how important aquarium substrate is in our hobby. If I only get one reader to change out their substrate, and it saves some fish in the long run it will be worth it.
For about the first five years or so, I battled with water chemistry, ammonia spikes, and unstable pH in the aquarium.
I started my first freshwater tank at 9 years old, and of course I went with the awesome cool looking blue gravel. LOL! Unfortunately when people decide to get into the aquarium hobby, they always make this first terrible mistake. Now, 24 years later I'm still keeping aquarium fish and I have learned a little bit along the way.
The colored aquarium gravel serves absolutely no purpose in your aquarium but looking cool and colored. In my opinion they need to stop selling it. Even the natural looking gravel has absolutely no buffering capability for your aquarium!
You spend quite a bit of money on all of your aquarium equipment, then you spend even more money on fish and aquatic life once it's set up and cycled. Why not spend a few extra bucks and buy substrate that buffers the tank?
Aragonite is the secret substrate that buffers both freshwater and saltwater aquariums! Wait a minute, it's not a secret, they sell it everywhere!
The more Aragonite you have in your aquarium, the higher your pH will be. It buffers the tank, maintains a higher pH, holds beneficial bacteria, and maintains stable water chemistry, granted you keep up on your routine 20-30% water changes.
Rarely do I ever have to add any sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) to the aquarium to raise the pH.
I use a mix of Aragonite and Cichlid eco-complete for my desired look.
No problems switching to saltwater either, I have taken a freshwater tank over to a marine tank in a days time,vacuumed out with the python, dumped in my marine salt, two hours later I put in some damsels to cycle the marine tank. The bacteria changes and the Aragonite continues to buffer the aquarium water. Three days later I was adding marine fish and never lost one of them. Of course a skimmer is required about a month later but that's another story.
There is nothing worse than hearing a person whine about their water quality and how they are constantly losing their fish, only to see they have that 7 dollar blue colored gravel from petsmart in their tank.
There are thousands of people who have left the hobby, simply because they were not educated from the beginning and couldn't keep their fish alive. Let's keep people educated, keep people in the hobby, and keep aquatic life alive!
So I'm begging you, please get rid of that hot pink or blue gravel and switch to a form of Aragonite. You will have a buffered tank that is extremely stable, and you can buy me a beer some time for telling you so!
Thanks for reading!
