Cories and substrate

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pisces22

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Aug 1, 2004
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Hey all,

I recently aquired three adorable "juli cories". I read that they need finer substrate or sand in their tank because of their delicate barbelles. Unfortunately my 8 month old tank just has the standard sized gravel( an unfortunate colour of blue) Do i need to switch the substrate for my cories?

Thanks
 
pisces22 said:
Hey all,

I recently aquired three adorable "juli cories". I read that they need finer substrate or sand in their tank because of their delicate barbelles. Unfortunately my 8 month old tank just has the standard sized gravel( an unfortunate colour of blue) Do i need to switch the substrate for my cories?

Thanks
Click to expand...

They should be OK a gravel switch would be more stressfull to them.
Your gravel is not that rough if painted. you could take some out and add some smaller sized stuff to fill in the gaps.

In my tanks the albino corys seem to fair best with rough gravel thinking they are tougher as they have been captive breed so many more generations out of the wild.
 
All about the water

I have corys in a 20g with sand a 40g with Flourite. The corys in my 20 do seem to really enjoy digging throught the sand. That being said, the corys in the flourite are doing just fine. They actively search the tank for food and their barbels are OK. From what I've read barbel health has a lot more to do with water quality and tank cleanliness than with substrate choice. Corydorasworld.com is a great site for all things Cory.
 
I've got a tank that at one time had a dozen of them (now only 7-8) and it's regular gravel you'd pick up at Wal-mart. I've had no problems.
 
I've read about barbel health and gravel in other threads.
I've got generic gravel, and the corys don't seem to mind.
The gravel does not have much sharp edges, and most of it is rounded.
A few days ago, I found one of my peppers with almost NO barbels!
Ack! :(
I think one of the yellow labs attacked him. :(
He seemed to move and feed okay.
After about 3 days, about half his barbels grew back!
WOW!
I dunno if these is natural, but I'm relieved he's okay.
 
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