Eco-Complete and Corydoras

[Kevin007]

Has anyone kept Corydoras with eco-complete as the substrate? I am still in the planning stages of my 125 G high tech planted but I am sold on using eco complete as the substrate, I originally wanted to use eco for the whole tank but is it necessary to have a nice sand area for them? Will they stay away from the eco if there is sand available? How sharp and heavy is the eco? thanks.

Originally I wanted to use black flourite sand, but its too light and needs alot of cleaning.

Keep in mind i have absolutely NO success with corydoras in regular aquarium gravel.

[stezatois]

I was looking at this stuff too, but was more wondering if its ok with snails. It seems to have a lot of stuff in it. But ill keep an eye on this thread too coz it would be going in the tank with the corys :)

[marl_nyc]

Hello I have Eco-complete in my 55 planted tank and I have 6 panda corys in it for about 3 months now. As far as I can tell with my panda corys they are doing all right. The substrate is not too fine. The bigger pieces of gravel ar on top and the sand/finer particles settle onto the bottom of the tank. My panda corys are constantly digging into the substrate. I also have 22 olive nerite snails and they are doing ok. Hope this helps. :)

[Kevin007]

Hello, what do you mean by "alright"? Are the corydoras' barbels getting damaged? I plan on getting alot of corydoras for my tank 50ish, so If anything happened to them because of the substrate, I would feel really bad about this. Is it any sharper or larger than regular gravel?

thanks!

[fishorama]

I have eco with small loaches, no barbel erosion after more than 2 years. That said I don't think it's ideal, I'm still looking for the "perfect" substrate for plants & fish. I also have corys on pool filter sand, ok but I don't like the almost white.

[msjinkzd]

I use ecocomplete with both snails and cories with no issues.

[Kevin007]

Nice! Well after the tank has been heavily planted, most of the eco will be covered anyway, I'll leave the foreground with pool filter sand.

Is it 100% safe? I saw some at home depot and I didn't know if it was such a good idea. I almost brought playsand there a year ago but it was incredibly dusty, I though to myself that noway can that be used for aquariums and when i looked at the bag it said not for use in aquariums so i gave up on it.

Any pictures with pool filter sand in aquariums?

[marl_nyc]

I have only had my tank up for 3 months so its kind of early to tell but from my observations they are doing ok and enjoy digging into the ecocomplete substrate. There are some small sized pebble pieces but overall the substrate are smaller than regular gravel.

[excuzzzeme]

One of my tanks has eco-complete and stock include 1 julie cory and 1 Oto. No problem for me.

[ninjaish]

I have eco with small loaches, no barbel erosion after more than 2 years. That said I don't think it's ideal, I'm still looking for the "perfect" substrate for plants & fish. I also have corys on pool filter sand, ok but I don't like the almost white.



*agreed* i have had mine for a yr/ and have 9 corys and a gajillion snails. every one is fine and also my 2 pictus cats are doing great as well

hope this helps!:goldfish::goldfish::goldfish:

[stezatois]

Hello, what do you mean by "alright"? Are the corydoras' barbels getting damaged? I plan on getting alot of corydoras for my tank 50ish, so If anything happened to them because of the substrate, I would feel really bad about this. Is it any sharper or larger than regular gravel?

thanks!


I read a few articles (cory newbie they came free with a tank) that said that finer gravel is better for the cory's barbels as they spend a lot of time forraging in the substrate. hope that helps :)

[justahannah]

Here's pics of my substrate...no fish yet since I'm still cycling, but I'm using 2 parts silica sandblasting sand ($6 for 100lb at Home Depot and lots cleaner than play sand) to 1 part Eco-Complete...so you can see how fine it is. The Eco-complete has a variety of particle sizes but the majority is similar to my sand or smaller (the bigger white pieces are crushed coral 2-3mm in size, I put a small handful in to stabilize my pH) and the eco complete tends to make neat layers through the sand based on particle size, you can see it in the second pic. I just mixed it all together since I'll have plants through most of the tank and supplement with Flourish tabs in the back where the deeper rooted plants are and overall I think the mix has a fairly natural look...not too light or dark. Hope that helps!
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3279/2768971868_78da18e668.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3207/2768126109_34dc643953.jpg?v=0

[Kevin007]

Natural indeed!! What I will probably do is to leave the foreground with sand (either sand blasting or pool filter) for the cories.

Which one is cleaner? more natural looking? I'm not sold on play sand.

[justahannah]

to the best of my knowledge, pool and sandblasting sand are very similar in look and content...100% silica and light tan, while play sand has more dust and other small rock content and is darker. You'll still have to rinse the silica, the dust is minimal compared to the dirt in play sand.

[shinyfish]

What exactly causes the wear to the barbels? sharp rocks?
I got smooth pebbles for my tank they are a little bigger then peas but very in size.

[Kevin007]

I think heavy gravel will erode the barbels too, they try to move it but it stresses them out, not to mention the gravel might fall on the barbels.

[Born4spd]

i honestly believe that it has less to do with the actual gravel size and more to do with anaerobic bacteria and bad water quality.

Imagine a cory breathing heavily digging away at the substrate then striking a gas pocket.... poor little guy.

Id also imagine that the poor water quality and how much gunk is in the substrate would harm the barbels more then slightly pointy rocks would.

[Kevin007]

that makes sense too. But ccan anaerobic bacteria develope on a 1 inch gravel substrate?

[justahannah]

I think anything particularly rough and solid will wear down the barbels...it's soft fleshy tissue. Something big and solid (say chunks of gravel) would be like us trying to push around boulders with our hands all day, we'll get scraped up. But a smaller rounder substrate like sand has a lot more give and and will cause less damage with the constant searching they do...it's like building sand castles all day instead :P

[fishorama]

Waste & food gets down in between larger particles but sits on top of sand, easier to find for fish & the vacuum. The smaller the corys the more work it is. Smooth & rounded is good, smaller is better, clean & easy to clean is best.

There is a study link on the skeptical aquarist site about keeping corys on broken glass vs bare bottom but with higher waste (nitrates). The barbel wear was apparent on the bare bottom tank but none noticed on the glass shards! The BB corys barbels grew back & the broken glass ones were moved. I found it quite interesting.

[Kevin007]

Thanks fishorama.

I'll be using eco complete with pool filter sand as the foreground creating a pathway sorta thing. I hope the cories will be aight.

(OT: Eco complete is black while pool filter sand is near white, will it look awkward? anyone use this combo?)

[fishorama]

2 tone substrate isn't my favorite look & they'll mix over time. I'd do all eco.

[Kevin007]

I'll try to separate the 2 substrates by rocks and have it hidden by anubias nana, but the problem is whether the 2 substrate's color maybe too far off. Unless the eco is 100% covered of course. I'll take what you said into consideration.

[SchizotypalVamp]

Sand is good for a variety of reasons. MTS, gravel vacs, and occasional poking around with a chopstick keep anaerobic pockets from building up.