Jack Dempsey's and what kind of substrate can I use with them

I guess it depends on what you want to do with the tank. I have seen people use fluorescent gravel, natural habitat looking gravel/rocks, that cut glass looking stuff, slate, driftwood, bigwood, lacerock, sand etc,.. I think it is really up to you and what you want. If you want something that would be natural to them then see what lakes they are from and what substrate would be in that region.

JD's

I use the med size gravel. Keep in mind that they will dig. The small was messy and the large was although not too big it was very labour intensive for the fish. So I went with the medium.

One thing to keep in mind. JD's color up allot nicer with darker gravel. I have mine in 3 different tanks with different color gravel.

I have found the one with the best coloring is the tank that has a coffee bean color gravel. It's dark but not too dark. The JD's in there look great. So good in fact I moved that tank to the living room to be the show tank.

Before I traded my JD to the LFS, it lived in a tank with white pool filter sand... it had a very dark body color... I'm selling that tank and I've bought 100lbs of Estes shallow creek gravel...it's a darker but not too dark gravel...hoping it will get the colors of my other fish to darken up.

Here's what he looked like:



And this pic was taken a couple weeks before he turned into a psychotic beast: