Substrate for corys

[Lozzyleigh]

I’m looking at putting corys in a tank that I am setting up I have chosen to go with half of the tank in black sand and the other half with large smooth pebbles that are bigger then Corys would this be okay to put corys in ??

 

[DoubleDutch]

I'd use only sand and decorate with the pebbles. Pebbles as substrate have the issue food gets out of reach and will start to decay.

 

[imw]

I have 10 albino in mine and I have play sand as a substrate. I am not sure about
black sand and grain size.

 

[Lozzyleigh]

I'd use only sand and decorate with the pebbles. Pebbles as substrate have the issue food gets out of reach and will start to decay.

Thankyou

 

[Lozzyleigh]

I have 10 albino in mine and I have play sand as a substrate. I am not sure black sand and grain size.

The black Sind is fine it’s just the same as play sand it’s more the other side I’m struggling to find alternatives as aquarium sand is expensive but for my tank theam I can’t put play sand as it wouldn’t go Thankyou anyway

 

[Byron]

Just to add something to follow up with what @DoubleDutch posted. Having a substrate of just pebbles even if only in one half of the tank floor is not advisable because food will get down there and the bacterial issues particularly for substrate fish like cories are significant. I have a few quite small pieces of river rock in my cory tank, primarily intended to hold down chain sword roots, but the cories can easily get at the sand around each of these bits of river rock.

This is actually an issue for any aquarium. Different sizes of river rock (pebbles) may look nice (they do) but this bacterial issue is going to be an issue. I have something like this in a small 20g tank, and it is the only tank with planaria, which I think likely has a direct relationship with the substrate of pebbles. The waste decomposition bacteria will be more numerous the smaller the grain size of the substrate, so with pebbles there is minimal bacteria colonization which means the food sits there causing problems rather than being more quickly dealt with.