Cory's And Gravel

[Seal36]

I am looking into getting some Cory's and I know that people say that sand is the best substrate for them but from reading this forum I have also learnt that a fair few of you are raising them on gravel. In my tank I have gravel that at its smallest is 1mm and at its biggest is 3 to 4mm and I was wondering if it would be ok to raise Cory's on this substrate but I also wanted to find out the opinions of those raising Cory's on both substrates and see if there was any difference in behaviour or anything like that. I would love to hear both sides of the story and think it could be a good debate between Cory owners from Tom

 

[fluttermoth]

I used to keep my cories on gravel and they were fine.

Then I moved them onto sand, and the difference was remarkable. They do like to root through the sand with their noses, and they just can't do that on gravel and, as gravel is harder to keep really clean, there is always the risk of them picking up bacterial infections and having their barbels erode.

Personally, I will never keep cories on gravel again.

 

[Shaddex]

+1
 
Same here, I run 3 Cory dedicated tanks and all had gravel in them.  Noticeable difference in behavior when I changed to sand.  More actively sifting through sand etc.

 

[DerpPH]

Same here, all bottom dwelling catfish love to dig their mouths in sand.
 
And as the others said cleaning up of sand is almost not necessary if you got snails

 

[greenmumma141]

Same here. My best fish-keeping experience was when I switched from my 30g with gravel to 60g with playsand. When I added my first cory to the new tank, it was almost like she couldn't believe there was sand and dove straight down into it, face first. I'll never go back

 

[Madness13]

They really do enjoy a good digging through the sand! Although not essential, I would 100% recommend the sand. I had gravel and changed to sand, I'd never go to gravel again. You can buy play sand from homebase/argos at around £3 for a 15kg bag.
 
If you did however, prefer the latter and wanted gravel, just make sure it's smooth gravel.

 

[DiddleBug]

I had corys in gravel for some time and when I got sand I noticed they liked to sit through it and they just acted happier.  i used cheap play sand and it's worked great!  Also, I noticed my corys raised on sand had longer barbels than my others that were on gravel.  
 
So I'd say you could do gravel if that's what you want.  I'd just recommend you use smooth smaller grained gravel.  

 

[Seal36]

The only problem for me is that I have just changed from big gravel to this much smaller gravel and I'm changing my 40 litre to a 70 and don't want to change to much in the tank as I am just transferring the water and filter media and ornaments over but if you think I could still change from gravel to sand and not kill off any fish that I already have in the 40 litre then I might do that as I want my fish to be happy and how easy is it to clean sand as I only have a syphon and was wondering if that would be capable to clean the sand.

 

[fluttermoth]

There won't be many bacteria living in your current gravel; they nearly all live in the filter media, where there's good flow and plenty of food for them. The media's the important thing to transfer; the water and decorations don't make that much difference.

Sand is pretty easy to clean, it's just a slightly different method than gravel. Basically, you 'swirl' the end of your gravel cleaner over the top of the sand, so the dirt floats up. You may well suck some sand up as well (I usually do, lol), but that's no trouble; just give it a rinse in the bucket and put it back in

You will need to thoroughly rinse the sand before you set the tank up. Sand always comes with a lot of dusty stuff you need to get rid of, or it will make your tank cloudy for days! Well worth it though

 

[Seal36]

Ok and how do you wash the sand because with my gravel I usually put it in a sieve and rinse it under hot water until it's clean but obviously with the sand it would just go straight through the sieve from Tom

 

[DiddleBug]

When I first got it I put it in a bucket and swished it around.  The stuff that floated overflowed and the good sand stayed at the bottom.  Now I just syphon above the sand.  Old food and stuff stays on top and is a breeze to clean! 

 

[Seal36]

That's good and would sand benefit other fishes as well or is it only good for the Cory's because I was going to change the substrate in both of my tanks and other than Argos where can you get play sand from as I don't need 15kg of it from Tom

 

[DiddleBug]

I got mine at a hard ware store.  You could check Menards if you have one nearby.  As far as other fish I've kept gouramis and guppies on sand and they seem to like it.  Gravel and sand both work for fish who aren't bottom dwellers.  I still like sand though.  It's so easy and it looks much better than gravel . That's just my opinion. 

 

[Seal36]

Ok well I have a 110 litre and a 70 litre fish tank that I want to change to sand so how much do you think I will need and also how deep do you make you sand as I don't make my gravel very deep from Tom

 

[DiddleBug]

Ok, this is just a guess based on how much I used but I'd say 50 lbs. would be good.  I got 50 lbs. for like 5 bucks. (It's heavy for it's size!)