Hi there,

Brand new member here. I’m looking for what I hope is some fairly basic info. Hopefully someone here can help. (My google sense must be off...). Purchased a 10 gallon (indoor) kit system off amazon. Looks like a pretty basic setup, but I feel like there’s plenty of missed components.

Question 1 - how deep should the gravel bed at the bottom be? Do I even need one? (Feel like I do). Most of the recommendations I’ve seen are for aquarium only systems. Seems like a really deep bed allows anaerobic bacteria formation, which acts as part of the filter, but I do want nitrates, not free nitrogen, so shouldn’t I have a shallower gravel bed?

Question 2 - at what point do I need to add aeration? Do I need to? (The return seems to create a fairly turbulent inflow... should this create enough dissolved gases? Or should I add separate aeration?

Question 3 - way back in the day I used to have a ‘shelf’ for the gravel, and then the air went under the gravel. This doesn’t seem like a good idea knowing what I’ve read now in terms of creating and anaerobic layer.

anything else you think I should know?