My main tank is now bare bottom

[chrissyoscar]

I've converted my main tank which was my planted tank to bare bottom.
I always found that the discus in that tank were always dark and never really happy. About a month ago I took my Spotted Snakeskin and Fine line Snakeskin out of the breeding tank and placed them into the planted community tank. While they were in the breeding tank they both had great color and were active and always hungry. After placing them both in the planted tank they both got very dark in color. I expected that as they needed time to settle in. After about a week they were eating but they remained dark. After about a month of this I convinced my wife that the tank had to go bare bottom or she could say goodbye to the discus as I wasn't going to leave them like that.
It took me about one week to convert as I only took out about 10-15% of the gravel each day.
The discus are still settling after the change but they do seem happier. :D
My planted tank looked much better but it had to be done.
Here are some before and after shots.

[Mattzilla]

looks great and will be much easier to keep clean as well

[Chafule]

that tank still looks very nice
nice pots :D

[weird]

You know what , I think both tanks look great ... you have a good eye.

[kalebjarrod]

nice nemo pics mate

is that flo in the corner? LOL

big nemo fan?

nice tank even after the change 8)

[chrissyoscar]

Thanks guys

I loved the way the tank looked before so going bare-bottom wasn't easy but I'm happy with the way it turned out.
As for the Nemo pictures yes that's Flo. I have a 3yr old and when he says daddy put the stickers on the fish tank because that's were the fish belong how could I say no. :roll:

Oscar

[Bad Inferno]

what a great look with the larger pots....

[kalebjarrod]

made me laugh

i have 4 of the same stickers on the car windows LOL

2 ahead of you mate LOL

again nice tank :wink:

[parasite]

nice setup u got there, what size is the tank and how many filters etc...

[chrissyoscar]

Thanks Parasite

This tank is a 48x18x18 and I'm only running one cannister filter which is an Aqua Pro CF-1200.

Oscar

[luvmydiscus]

Beautiful pictures, I am a fan of the planted tank with the gravel. Just my personal preference.

I would like to ask though, after joining this forum I seen how you all have your plants in pots. I thought I would try this as my gravel would not hold my plants in place. After a week, I noticed a horrible smell. It was my plants rotting in the pots with the gravel. My gravel is just like the pic above.

Anyone else have this problem?

I had to throw away my fountain plant, the amazon sword I managed to save and have it attached to a piece of rock in the gravel bed to hold it down.

:?

[Trebs]

Good to see it worked out. Removing the gravel can be a tricky process. Doing it bit by bit is certainly the way to go.

On another forum a guy with about 20 discus lost half when he removed too much gravel at once.

[kalebjarrod]

got to be careful

don't want to remove to much at one time

[chrissyoscar]

yeah I used a 12mm hose and syphoned the gravel out. That way I wouldn't mix the gravel up to much and keep the water from going brown with all the sh*t that's in the gravel.
About 8 mths ago I removed an undergravel filter and lost a snakeskin due to all the sh*t in the gravel mixing with the water. That wasn't going to happen this time.
By syphoning the gravel out I was removing gravel and water so after removing about 10% gravel I found that 20% water was also removed. No big deal the fish got a 20% water change every day for about 8 days.

Oscar

[kalebjarrod]

thats a great way to do it

i'll have to keep that in my bag of tricks if you don't mind :wink:

[chris_d]

Both are great tanks, but i wonder why would they go dark like that in a planted tank. What are the differences between the 'additives', and the like, you put in the water for the planted tank to what you put in the tank now? perhaps you could find some descrepency, because its a shame to put away your ideas for a planted tank because of something unknown.

i have a planted tanks and mine are thriving!!

[chrissyoscar]

Hi Chris

I think the main difference between planted tanks and bare bottom tanks is maintanance. In a bare bottom tank it's a lot easier to keep clean as you can see where all the mess is.
Planted tanks are great but if you don't have the time to keep them properly maintained by regularly cleaning the gravel you can end up in trouble which is where my tank was heading.

Oscar