color of gravel

[wingedjumper517]

What color gravel do you guys use with your fish? I'm trying to layout my tank, and I was wondering if you guys had an opinion as to what color gravel makes the fish stand out or brings the color out of them (not literally). Like I have the neon (pink, purple, blue, green) gravel in for my fancy goldfish, and it almost seems to make the fish "glow" because the brightness of the gravel is reflected off their scales.

I'd be doing this with my tank with some tiger barbs, clown loaches, a rainbow shark, and catfish. Right now, I have metalic blue, green, and purple that was jsut in there from before.

[Renee1]

I have a mixture of light and royal blue in my tank and i find it makes my tiger barbs stand out nicely.

[cameraman_2]

my 10 gallon tank has black gravel with metalic looking plants and it looks very unique while my 55 gallon has Seachem Flourite Plant Substrate which is for planting live plants. Everyone really says that it looks like a real lake bottom and I really like this stuff. What I did is found it online for 12.99 and printed off the page and took that to petsmart and they sold it to me for that price when it was actually marked at 25.99 at petsmart.

[shev]

I use the more natural looking stuff, the gravel, and fluorite.

but I had some blue stuff in a tank I liked.

[Fla280zxDrifter]

the darker the gravel the better, it'll bring out the colors better, it'll keep stress levels in the fish lower, and it's generally more natural looking

[fish_doc]

I also tend to stay with the natural colors. But when I first started I had blue in one and a gold in another. The gold worked nice it was close to a natural color but had a little extra kick that showed the tank and fish nicely.

[Lexus]

I have black and love it... i also have red in another and dont love that so much

[eda]

i am in love with white gravel, i can't get enough of it.... <shivers>

[Lydia]

i had blue and green and white and that looked good, but now i have natural colored and i think that looks best because it makes the fish stand out well

[Fishfirst]

I like natural, white ends up dirty looking eventually IME... I have blue and natural and I definatley like natural better

[google]

for bright fish, i use natural
and natural color fish, i use bright

[Jobrien323]

My betta tank has black gravel in it. It seems to show off the blue/purple color of him nicely.

My platy tank has natural-colored river rocks in there, and that really works well (the fry blend right in, which gives them more cover along with all the plants)

[fishfreaks]

i like the black, but we have a mixture of yellow orange, blue and green in our 15 g. tank, but were going to get some black gravel and mix the two. all our other tanks have black green and purple

[osteoporoosi]

I prefer natural, fine sand. The darker the better, now I'm trying to find fine black sand.
Neon colors and stuff like that are a big no-no for me.

[Thunderkiss]

Only natural colors for me.

[Imbrium]

My 10 gal has natural colored gravel. Other than that my tanks are bare-bottomed for spawning.
I also have a small tank with bright blue gravel. It shows off my red betta really nicely.

[fish_doc]

Im surprised no one has said green and given the reason because it hides all the algae in my tank.

[shev]

Anybody use laterite, or eco-complete? are they any good? are they both rusted red like fluorite?

I use fluorite in a few of my tanks, it grows plants pretty well.

[malawi4me2]

I only like natural looking substrates, also. I use the CaribSea Eco-Complete African Cichlid Sand in my Malawi cichlid tank, and I have the CaribSea Eco-Complete for planted tanks in my West-African cichlid tank. The African Cichlid sand is a mixture of white and black (with some pieces being larger than others), and the Eco-Complete for planted tanks is very dark brown (almost black). If I could do it over, I'd probably use some type of sand in the West-African tank too, because I like the way that sand looks in a tank.

[mxpx4318]

I believe it has a lot to do with the color of the fish as for what color gravel (if that's your thing) will help make their colors stand out, I have black/white gravel mix in my 29g with red/orange and white rocks and green and red plants that really makes my white skirts redvelvet and black velvet swords stand out but the panda and skunk cories really blend into the gravel... I used to have blood red gravel, driftwood and deep green plants in my 20g which really made my gold barbs stand out but now I have sand in the 20g as well as my 10g brackish which may not allow the fish to stand out as much but sure does make the tank overall look better (more natural is what I go for). I do still have a 10g molly tank with BRIGHT red gravel that really contrasts the black mollies nicely too, so it all just depends on your fish type I think and what you're overall look is that you're going for.