# how many bags of gravel?



## FeederFish33 (Jan 22, 2003)

how many do I need to cover the bottom of my tank? Also, it needs to be fairly deep because I will be rooting plants. I want natural gravel.


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## bobme (Feb 17, 2003)

do the math, Base times width and hight of graval you want and get a Sq. foot then go to the pet store and take that square foot # and buy it, no flaws :smile:


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## FeederFish33 (Jan 22, 2003)

how bout you do that, i want 1.5 inches of gravel. My tank footprint is 72 by 24. Now YOU do the math.


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## bobme (Feb 17, 2003)

.... dumb people...
ok ill do the math ... 
i belvie its 18sq. feet of rock,
72x24x1.5=2592 then / 144 bcuase 12 inches by 12 inches is 1 sq. foot so, that = 18


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## FeederFish33 (Jan 22, 2003)

18 what? bags of gravel?


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## Guest (Mar 3, 2003)

I would go with 150-200 pounds


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## FeederFish33 (Jan 22, 2003)

jiminy jig! thats a lot! but whatever, 150 pounds


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## bobme (Feb 17, 2003)

18 sq feet ... arg, is it that hard to figure out?


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## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

general rule= 1 pound per gallon. Then you adjust depending on the depth of gravel you want in your tank.


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## bobme (Feb 17, 2003)

grosse gurke said:


> general rule= 1 pound per gallon. Then you adjust depending on the depth of gravel you want in your tank.


 So i need 500 lbs of rock?







damn thats going to suck.


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2003)

You can get gravel very cheap at a home depot or lowes. I got two 50 pound bags for $2.40 each. Its called pea gravel or river rock. The kind i got was called, all purpose gravel but its the same as pea gravel. It looks great, the only bad thing about it is it has alot of dirt so you have to clean it good.


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## Sir Nathan XXI (Jan 29, 2003)

175lbs for about 2.5" deep gravel bed

oops I made a mistake, I forgot 180g were 6" wider than 125s


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## WebHostExpert (Jan 16, 2003)

1 lb of gravel for 1 gallon of water hench 180gal tank 180lbs of gravel.
you can go less if not using live plants, if live plants use 200lbs.
MAD


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## SnowCichlid. (Jan 10, 2003)

Best bet is to buys more than enough and return wahtever bags you do not use...


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## bobme (Feb 17, 2003)

njpiranha said:


> You can get gravel very cheap at a home depot or lowes. I got two 50 pound bags for $2.40 each. Its called pea gravel or river rock. The kind i got was called, all purpose gravel but its the same as pea gravel. It looks great, the only bad thing about it is it has alot of dirt so you have to clean it good.


 Ok .. thats not to bad, but ... gwad darn it, 500 lbs of rock alone!


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## Judazzz (Jan 13, 2003)

grosse gurke said:


> general rule= 1 pound per gallon. Then you adjust depending on the depth of gravel you want in your tank.


 I don't agree with that: it would mean that for two identical tanks, with only one difference (ie. one is a couple of inches taller), you'd need different amounts of gravel?

I used about 8 bags of gravel in my 80 gallon (old setup; tank footprint measures 130x50 cm.), but the layer of gravel was 7-10 cm. inches thick, give or take.
After I moved, I re-used a small quantity of the old gravel (I guess about 10-15 kilo's), and added 2,5 bags of gravel for a layer about 5cm. thick. Each bag contained 10 kilo of gravel (sorry to all you non-metrics: I'm too lazy to convert to imperial measures...).


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## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

Judazzz said:


> grosse gurke said:
> 
> 
> > general rule= 1 pound per gallon. Then you adjust depending on the depth of gravel you want in your tank.
> ...


 Of course if you have a 120 tall and a 120 long they will require different amounts of gravel to achieve the same depth. This is a very simple and easily remembered general rule that will give you an approximation of the gravel needed. I am sure there is a calculation if you want 2.5 inches of gravel and you have a foot print of 2'X4' but I am far too lazy to try to remember it when the simple method will get me within a few pounds (plus or minus) of where I want to be. And I buy bags in 50lbs increments so I would buy 200lbs and eye ball what looks good.


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