Habitat - Indoor :: Gravel

[Chrisbarnett]

Choco,
You should remove the gravel now. Why even risk it?
When you change you pretty much have 3 options. Bare bottom, river rock, or sand. Bare bottom is obviously the lowest maintenance, yet it is less than pleasing aesthetically.
Sand is very clean and natural, Yet a bit more hassle when doing water changes.
River rock is the dirtiest of all, with the spaces in between the rock allowing waste to get trapped keeping it away from the filter. River rock needs more maintenance, I.E. siphoning between the rocks to get trapped waste.

It's up to you, but if you asked me I would recommend sand because it is clean, and looks very natural.

[TheComputerGremlin]

ChocoTurtle, it doesn't matter what size your turtle is, there is no safe gravel. Imagine a 2" turtle against a typically sized rosie red minnow. They can practically unhinge their jaw and swallow the minnow whole. So, if a 1" by 1/2" fish isn't safe, why would a little piece of rock be any safer. I'd get rid of it asap. You'll probably find gravel showing up for weeks afterwards as the turtle continues to pass what he's eaten.

[ChocoTurtle]

Choco,
You should remove the gravel now. Why even risk it?
When you change you pretty much have 3 options. Bare bottom, river rock, or sand. Bare bottom is obviously the lowest maintenance, yet it is less than pleasing aesthetically.
Sand is very clean and natural, Yet a bit more hassle when doing water changes.
River rock is the dirtiest of all, with the spaces in between the rock allowing waste to get trapped keeping it away from the filter. River rock needs more maintenance, I.E. siphoning between the rocks to get trapped waste.

It's up to you, but if you asked me I would recommend sand because it is clean, and looks very natural.

ok, thanks for the advice

[NZ_Scotty]

I'm looking at switching to sand because as you said, its cleaner and looks nicer.

I just had one question though. I have an air stone in my tank, my tutles love playing in the bubbles. Do you think this would upset the sand to much and send debris floating all the time??

[Chrisbarnett]

NZ,
Nope, you'll be fine. I was experimenting with an airstone last night and I buried it in the sand, the bubbles came through the sand perfectly, After a while it worked the sand off the stone, but no flying debris.
Sand particles are heavier than you think, they sink quite quickly.

[SpotsMama]

Another alternative for the bottom of a tank is some backing with a nice picture of the kind that you normally see on the back of an aquarium. Sometimes this kind of setup works well.

Another alternative is to put just a few river rocks on the bottom, rather than filling up the space completely. It's not hard to clean up around a dozen or so river rocks.

[Chrisbarnett]

Interesting Aquarium backing idea Spotsmama. If done well and the reflection of the glass wasn't bad it would look real nice.

I have tried the few river rocks rather than a full bottom, it was easier to clean, but I just felt like my tank was too bare.

But both of those are good and viable options!

[NZ_Scotty]

I've also played around with less or more gravel (I use large gravel, to big to eat) But because the tanks in my bed room i had trouble sleeping with less gravel in the tank because it makes a lot of noise when they move the stones and they scrape on the glass bottom. So i have quite a thick (2-4 inches) layer of stones so it tends to hide a lot of debris. I figured with the sand, it will be cleaner and quieter