Tropical Fish Forums

[lenoirj]

I'm thinking of buying 3 cory's for my 10gallon. I currently have medium sized gravel in the tank. Is this okay for cory's? I didn't think about my substrated being a problem for them until I read another question about their barbels. Is there something I should know about this before I run out and buy them?

Thanks!

[tetrabarb]

its just OK
there barbels could get ripped off if they get caught between the rocks but I don't think it happens too often
sand is the best for them
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[lenoirj]

Is it possible to put a thin layer of sand on top of the gravel?

[ceci9293]

I'd worry about vacuuming up the sand everytime I cleaned the gravel. I guess you could replace it each time?

I just put some cories in my 35gal and I put a 'sandbox' in there for them. There's a picture of it here. Not a great picture, but the cories were flighty that first evening and my son was tugging on my arm the whole time, hehehe. It's just a tupperware container with the sand in it. I'm going to replace it with a glass bowl soon, so I don't run into trouble with the plastic degrading or anything like that. The cories sure love it though. I've caught several of them playing in it, and one of them was sleeping on it last night!

To put the sand in there, we put it first into a cup then lowered that through the water slowly; when it got just over the container, we poured it out slowly. It created almost no cloudiness. There's always sand on the plants nearby it in the tank though, probably from the fish stirring it up.

[lenoirj]

What a great idea! Is that regualar aquarium sand or that Target play sand that I see a lot of people use here? I may have to "reorganize" my tank to be able to do that but I think it's a neat idea.

[tetrabarb]

I was thinking about doing a 'sandbox' type thing in my tank but I ws just going to make a ditch in the gravel and fill it with sand then I thought the sand and gravel would eventually get mixed together. I was going to do that cause I couldnt just change the gravel.
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[Shai]

A sandbox is a good idea--I'll be doing this in my own tank.

Layering sand over gravel is impossible, since the sand particles are smaller than the gravel particles. The sand will just fall into the spaces in the gravel and eventually end up as a layer underneath the stones.
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[Flame Angel]

In my reef tank, I use a bottom layer of gravel, and a top layer of sand,seperated by a 'gravel tidy'- a peice of very fine mesh or net. This works resonably well.
But, as already mentioned, it is practically impossible to clean the gravel with out sucking up all the sand as well.

[Brave Dave]

I have a sand box for cories too. I just used a glass pan, and filled it with sand. They do love it. Just be carful when adding the sand. Get it wet before you put it in the aquarium and that will keep it from getting everywhere

[Osprey]

If you want a more natural look, you can build a rock retaining wall and keep the sand and gravel separated. My sister has successfully kept cories in her 20 gallon for several months now with this setup. No problems with sand and gravel mixing, or anything like that. I'll try to get some pics of it. Hang on.

The sand is play sand, and all the rock except the black slate was gathered at a local river, then boiled for an hour to sterilize it. The rocks are big enough that she didn't have to use silicon on them or anything like that. Took a few hours in the afternoon, that's all.
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