Aquarium Gravel / Substrate

You will need to add Aquarium Gravel / Substrate in your tank.

This serves several purposes:

Your fish tank and the health of your fish generally rely on the formation and growth of beneficial bacteria that lives in and on your tank and filter; these bacteria need a place to live.
One of the places they colonize quite frequently is your Aquarium gravel.
Secondly, you will need a place to plant your live and/or fake aquarium plants.
The gravel you add will give you a good anchor for your plants, so that they don't end up floating around in your tank
Beatifying the environment inside your tank.
A bare fish tank is not a pretty sight, you gravel can and will make your tank look better.

There are many types and colors of Aquarium gravel available for sale at your local pet store.

I prefer using gravel that is not too fine as it makes it harder to clean the tank at a later stage.

A useful gravel hint: If you want to show off your colorful fish, use very dark or black gravel, this makes your fish's color jump out lots more than lighter colors.

If you want the colors of your plants to look more pronounced, you can use lighter gravel.

Mixing several colors of aquarium gravel can give you some nice effects, but be careful of overdoing it.

Too many colors may make your tank look like a merry-go-around.

Some things to look out for:

Make sure that the gravel you put in your tank is aquarium safe.

Some gravel may slowly give off impurities, or dissolve.

This can contaminate your water and / or cause fluctuations in your PH (Very bad for your fish)

Incorrect gravel may also make your tank water look permanently cloudy.

In this article I explain the proper way to add new gravel into your new tank (Article in progress)