New To Fish, New To Cory's

[martyn21uk]

Okay heres my set up. 40L 24"x12"x12" tank. Cycled with 6x black widow tetra'a for 7 weeks now. Ammonium = 0. Nitrite = <0.1 Nitrate = 0.
So I went to LFS on Thursday after small amount of research but took advice from LFS and bought 3x peppered cory's.
All is great and cory's and Tetra's are doing fine, but on reading this forum I have become slightly concerned with my gravel. It is by no means big but equally its not sand but LFS said nothing about this to me. Should I leave it and not worry or can i add an area of sand with the gravel for them to have more fun?

 

[fishboy619]

personally cories belong on sand, but in a newly cycled tank, im not sure if its a good idea to change from gravel to sand. the best thing i can think of doing is buying some play sand (argos £2.49) and having an area or the tank base covered in sand. wash the sand first though. maybe either half, or even full substrate of sand on top of the gravel.if live plants are what you have, they will benefit from the gravel with the roots but the sand will help the cories, if you havent got live plants, or not many, maybe wait a while then change from gravel to sand compleatly.
IMO cories need sand to live happily.an area of sand is good, but all sand is better.

 

[martyn21uk]

Many thanks for that. I don't have any live plants at the moment. Was keen to get the tank cycled, filter well established with as few variables as possible. I think I'll pop and get the sand though and put that in an area of the tank. I kind of like the idea of them having a play area, might even get a bucket and spade!!
Also one other question. LFS gave me, well sold me TetraTabimin to feed them. The problem is as the cory's are quite small and this tablet food is huge they end up nibbling it for a while, leaving it then coming back. Its gone in about 10 minutes so i'm not removing anything but is this okay? or should i be able to get a smaller sinking food for them?

 

[Barracuda518]

While its easy to just put sand over the gravel, its not the best idea. Eventually the sand with go to the bottom and all of the gravel will surface. I tried the whole half sand half gravel thing and it didnt work. I had to go back and change the whole thing to sand. I guess you could put some kind of barrier between the gravel and sand to keep the sand from moving. Also, if the gravel is not really clean, then you would trap all that stuff under the sand.

Good Luck

 

[martyn21uk]

Thanks for the advice. My intention is to do a 25% water change today and combine that with a good go with the gravel cleaner and move the gravel up to one end leaving about 25% of the tank base to put some sand down. I appreciate that the gravel and sand may mix over time but by doing it this way more than putting sand over the gravel, it should create less mixing of the two. Also it will create a nice and pit area for the cory's to call home (I only have 3 at the moment).

How does that sound?

 

[martyn21uk]

Okay, I've done my water change now and made about 25% of the base at one end completely sand and pushed the gravel up away from it to the other end, so roughly i now have 25% sand, 75% gravel. The corries are enjoying having a look around for now so all seems good. But what about the food? The sinking tablets I have are huge. Should or can I get anything smaller for them?

 

[DanS]

Thread Hijack!! Talking of needing sand, I have a tank with eco-complete, which isn't really gravel, more like ...er.... dirt i suppose. I am planning on getting some Corys - would they be ok on this? (pic attached)

Thanks

Dan

 

[fishboy619]

for the food, tabimin is a good food to give them, if its going, there are eating it. they may be small now, but they will grow and eat it quicker. try bloodworms,brineshrimp, daphina and tetra prima for the cories, they like them, if feeding any i just mensioned, feed on the sanded area so it dont fall though the gravel.some places sell plastic strips that can go between gravel and sand to stop it mixing.
just out of intrest, what fish shop are we talking about here? just curious as they seem to be helping you a little.
as for the eco-compleate dan, it should be fine, again, if worried place a layer of sand on top, but eventually it will mix together.

 

[martyn21uk]

Thanks for the advice, I actually bought some bloodworms today from pets at home. I don't like them as a company but it was next door to argos where i bought the sand so i popped in. To be fair to them, i overheard the guy talking someone out of buying a tiny goldfish bowl and insisting that he wasn't going to sell him fish for it today either so fair play to them for that. I've actually just gave them bloodworms, although I don't normally the feed the evening after a water change but i couldn't resist and they seem to love them.
Now as for me and my LFS's. I'm gonna tell quite a long story so by all means get bored and give up reading!!
I got my tank, a tropiquarium55 about 6 years ago as a present. I used Polhill as my LFS as that was where the tank was from and in hindsight, they were useless. They told me very little about cycling and didn't advise me to or offer to test my water before adding a second lot of fish. In fact I think they let me do it two weeks after the first lot. Needless to say I started to lose fish. They then sold me a load of different home testing kits, again without actually educating me about the nitrogen cycle or anything and needless to say I lost all of my fish. On that I gave up, re-boxed all of my tank and gave up.
Then last summer i got inspired by a trip to seaworld in San Diego. So I came home and this time went and spoke to a different LFS, Aquazoo in Croydon where I work. They were absolutely brilliant and he talked me through what probably went wrong last time and how to avoid it this time. They also test your water there for £3 a go. A little expensive but they track all of your results and give detailed advice on what products to use for your specific tank. Three pages of computer print out certainly make for some reading on the train home. As I said I can't fault Aquazoo at all really, they are always friendly and I think its the only LFS I've ever been to where I've felt comfortable asking absolutely anything without feeling stupid. They always seem to be honest and although they are a little expensive on things, I trust them and that counts for a lot.

The problem now is that I've changed jobs for a little while and am no longer near Croydon so after scoring a 98% water test in Aquazoo last week, I decided to try a new LFS for my next stock of fish. I'm sorry but I don't remember the name of the shop but its just off of the A2 near Danson Park at Penhill. With them, I have been generally okay with what they told me but I was annoyed that nothing was mentioned about whether I had sand or gravel when I bought my cory's. I had gone in and told him my situation and asked for advice but he said have a look at what you like and I'll tell you whether they're suitable. Fair enough, but when I asked about Cory's he just said that it was good to have working fish in the tank. So as for what I've done now with the sand, I've pretty much got it form you, this website and common sense. All seems okay so far but the water is a little cloudy. I washed the sand loads and loads but I guess it will still take a while to settle down so I'm not too worried about that for now.

Thanks for your help!!

 

[Maxta]

We have cory's in our tank downstairs, it has gravel as the surface (not fine) and they enjoy themselves very much in the tank, non-stop little workers. Why is it that it is recommended to have sand for corys than gravel? If you have fine gravel and add sand on top will the gravel still emerge to the top?

 

[Captain Retardo]

We have cory's in our tank downstairs, it has gravel as the surface (not fine) and they enjoy themselves very much in the tank, non-stop little workers. Why is it that it is recommended to have sand for corys than gravel? If you have fine gravel and add sand on top will the gravel still emerge to the top?

The reason why sand is advised is so that the corys don't lose their barbels, if they lose their barbels then they won't be able to find food. Rounded gravel should be fine, anything that is sharp is not.

As for the second question; The sand will eventually fill in the spaces in the gravel, so it will be a kind of mix, I guess though if you poured in enough sand, then all the spaces would fill up, and you would have sand on top and gravel on bottom...If your gravel is rounded, then your corys should be fine.

 

[Orbit887]

I started off my 29US gal tank with gravel, after few months added 6 corys, but after seeing peoples advice to get sand, I put in a small (10inch or so) semi circle of sand in the tank, moving the gravel out of the way. The corys literally spent all of their time on it. So after seeing that, I decided to change the whole tank to sand, and for the corys, it was the best choice i could've done. They love the sand, great to see them digging into it, and sifting through it.

 

[Maxta]

Whats the recommended depth of sand? An inch?

 

[fishboy619]

any dept you want really, 1 inch is fine, for digger such as cories and kuhliis deeper is better, of course dont go over the top with 5 inches, lol
2 cm is good.