Cory substrate?

[bgourami320]

Now, I was going to use very small pea gravel, since it seems smoother then the gravel I've seen at the lfs. A friend said no to that, they'll rub off their little whiskers and have a flat face! He mentions #2 bird gravel, never heard of it, has anyone used it.
Better yet what do you use for your cory's and loaches?

 

[stevezx2002]

I use Pool filter sand right now, but I am upgrading tanks and looking to change to gravel so I am interested in what others use as well.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

the pea gravel from lowes/ home depot? i have used it with cories with out problems. sand is a option like stevez2002 said.

 

[GuppyGirl1230]

I use black aquarium gravel, all of my corys are fine. No injuries, no missing barbels. I have not had a single problem.

 

[stevezx2002]

Last week I changed from the PFS (shows alot of poop with larger fish) to pea gravel from lowes in my cichlid tank and it looks great, but I think some of the pieces of gravel are a little on the large side for the panda corys I have.
My lowes might get it from a different supplier though any pics of your Pea Gravel Mgamer20o0?

That is a ~5" Turquoise Severum for size comp.




PFS with pandas

 

[nss11110]

i use playsand the cories love it and so do the plants. they even dig in it

 

[bgourami320]

My neighbor uses sandbox sand, is that what you mean nss? I heard sand compacts and gets really hard, I want to plant the tank would that hurt the plants roots?
Steve I also heard about the pool filter sand, can gravel and sand be mixed? or is that a bit much? Love your tank! That Severum is a beauty! The pfs doesn't look to small but it's light colored and might not show up fish coloring too well, tho your fish look fine against it.

 

[bgourami320]

Think I will go with the pea gravel, a small sized one and mix a little black eco-complete in with it, we'll see. Setting up this weekend, if it looks awful I'll just change it out. Doing fishless cycle so it might be awhile for fish anyhow.

 

[jpappy789]

Sand and plants shouldn't be a problem. As for compacting, it can happen, but not very often. Some people manually stir it up and others add something like MTS.

As for mixing, eventually the sand is just going to end up underneath the gravel since the grain sizes are so much smaller.

And as for corys, so long as the gravel isn't sharp they should be fine.

 

[BettaFishMommy]

cories love to 'snuffle', lol, in sand!

i have a mix of small pea gravel and coarse sand (larger grains but not quite as big as pool filter sand) in my planted tank and i always find that the areas that don't have plants get stirred up by my cories (not right down to the tank bottom though) and they somehow snuffle the sand to the top of the substrate and then hang out in that spot until the sand sifts back down under the pea gravel. snuffle, repeat, snuffle some more, lol.

plants grow great in play sand, IME.