If you’ve ever heard the term substrate you are probably wondering what it is. Substrate is known as the rock, sand or gravel that you use in your freshwater or saltwater aquarium. You will usually want at least three inches of substrate in your aquarium to house beneficial bacteria. In saltwater tanks, a lot of different saltwater fish will like to sift through and bury themselves in the substrate. You can purchase substrate from your local pet store. One common type of substrate is the different colored rock that you can place in your freshwater aquarium. This rock works good for freshwater tanks but you need to be careful that the fish do not get it stuck in their mouths when they treat to suck in fish flakes.
If you do not have any substrate in your fish tank your fish will usually do all right but there wont be as much beneficial bacteria. There’s also no where to for the fish to hide or bury themselves in. You will also not be able to anchor in different fake and live plants. Substrate will also give your tank a more natural look and it will also add color as well, if you have colored rock.
The best substrate to use in a saltwater tank is sand or small gravel. You can purchase this from your local pet store as well. The best type of sand to get is called Live Sand. This means that the sand has organisms and things living in it. This will help to establish your fish tank. Your fish will also eat little organisms that are living in your sand. Copepods will also form from the live sand and your fish will eat these as well. You can also fill your saltwater fish tank with live rock that will house and contain copepods.
So as you can see, substrate is very important. You can leave your tank empty if you want but then your fish have nothing to do. Imagine if I kept you inside your house with nothing but empty walls. That would be one boring life. If you are going to get a fish you should add a little bit of color and decoration to the tank and the first way to do this is with substrate. You will need to purchase enough substrate to fill your tank with at least 3 inches of substrate. With large fish tanks you will probably need somewhere around ten to fifteen bags of substrate. With a ten gallon tank you will only need about three or four bags of rock or substrate. You can always take bag the bags that are extras.
The best type of substrate for freshwater tanks is the colored rock that you see in the pet stores, as long as the fish don’t get it stuck in their mouths. The best type of substrate for saltwater tanks is live sand which contains little organisms that will help establish your saltwater fish tank.
