12 Volt Man's New Fishroom Thread

I almost convinced myself not go with with the Estes "Black Special" gravel that I bought. I have 4 new 25 bags unopened, and 50 pounds from one of my old tanks ready and rinsed...

BUT,

I have heard problems with Estes black chipping away (a problem that I have not yet had with mine (and its 2 year old gravel)

I know black sand looks great, but I have never had sand, and I do not want to have my first tank with it be such a huge tank.

I would much rather have sand in a 20 or a 30 first, then use it on a giant tank...

However, I think I will go with the gravel I bought. even if it does fade a bit over time, it will always be a darker substrate, and with a black background and black silicone, I think the tank will look good still..

I really don't like any of the other colours available out there...black is the way to go IMO. I just wish there was a coated gravel that I could be sure would hold its colour..
 
I like black/dark substrate as well. I have the estes in a few tanks, and it has chipped off. I started using soilmaster select charcoal (till they stopped making it) and now am looking into 3m colorquartz black. I am curious to see how your estes holds up.
 
thats what I mean. some have had bad experiences with it. my experience with it so far has been good..

one of the other reasons why I went with it is my LFS has many tanks with estes black special (I helped make the gravel switched back when I worked there) and it has held up well for over 4 years now (I left there in 2006 but we changed out the gravel on a whole wall of tanks in 2004)..back then I realized that I hated the white gravel I had in most of my tanks at the time and wanted black..

I am thinking it might be quality control issues? perhaps there are some bad batches in circulation out there?

if my gravel does turn crappy, we will be able to see it in all the pic updates I plan for this tank! :)
 
I wonder if how you do maintenance plays a role. I do 2x weekly gravel vacs, so the gravel gets alot of disruption. Did they have auto wc at your work or were the tanks vacc'ed alot?
 
cool!!!!!
 
I can take one when i feed tonight. Its white when it chips off. To be fair, I have it in 3 tanks, and only 2 are chipping.
 
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