Adding additional substrate

Doing it in steps of 1/2" or less is without issue that I know of. Going too deep all at once can smother the bacteria though. I've added over an inch to an existing tank doing it in steps over time.

Awesome - thx wkndracer! My thoughts were that since I was only thickening a small portion of the bottum (probably a square foot area of the 55 gallon) instead of trying to cover the entire bottum, that it would not be an issue.

You'll be fine putting it in. I would say 95% of the bacteria live in the filter anyways so the bacteria growing on the substrate can be ignored. Just remember to keep the bag of water clarifier that comes with the eco. You will cloud up your tank pretty badly with the eco but the clarifier works great to clean it up within 12 hours.

Postal Penguin said:

I would say 95% of the bacteria live in the filter anyways so the bacteria growing on the substrate can be ignored.

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Do you have facts to back that up?

Well, I went ahead and added the substrate and everything looks great. The reason I added btw is that the driftwood pieces are attached to rather large flat rock pieces. The substrate over the rock was a bit to thin to really plant anything in, so I really just wanted to thicken the base around the driftwood so I could plant... I used a plastic cup, lowered slowly to the bottum, then poured in the desired location. To be honest it really didn't even hardly cloud the water, within about 3 hours it was back to clear. I can understand how it would be a problem if you were trying to recover the entire substrate, but I think if you are just adding a slope, or filling in a section you're not going to run into any problems, imho.

I've actually done that with flourite. Rinsed it like crazy with as little agitation as possible. Lowered it very slowly and watched as the dust cloud drifted toward the filter. The water was completely clear in a few hours.

airborne_r6 said:

Do you have facts to back that up?

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The vast majority of "knowledge" in this hobby is surmised by experience. "I would say" means exactly what it says, and there's nothing wrong with that.

kid creole said:

The vast majority of "knowledge" in this hobby is surmised by experience.

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I would be curious to know exactly how one gains experience into the percentage of microorganisms living in the substrate compared to the filter without doing cultures from each and comparing the cell counts.

kid creole said:

"I would say" means exactly what it says, and there's nothing wrong with that.

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There is something wrong with it actually. Thats how myths get started in this hobby. The next time it gets repeated it loses the "I would say" and becomes fact.

airborne_r6 said:

I would be curious to know exactly how one gains experience into the percentage of microorganisms living in the substrate compared to the filter without doing cultures from each and comparing the cell counts.



There is something wrong with it actually. Thats how myths get started in this hobby. The next time it gets repeated it loses the "I would say" and becomes fact.

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I think you're blowing this out of proportion. YMMV.

kid creole said:

I think you're blowing this out of proportion. YMMV.

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You are right, as a scientist its just a pet peeve.