Hello!
My name is Barbara and I come from Germany (yes, from this bad, cruel forum aquaristik-talk).
I think waterworld´s critic was a little bit harsh and not put kindly.
Anyway, not all of us Germans are bad and just want to criticise. Usually we dicuss different experiences in our forum and try to help beginners.
But we have made very good experiences with cories and sand. They "chew" the sand for food, especially when you give them bloodworms or tubifex (I´m not sure if you know that, could not find a translation). And a lot of our users have unfortunally experienced that their cories hurt their barbules on gravel.
In Germany artificial plants are not very widespread in tanks and are frowned upon, because living plants take an important place in the nutrient chain. I hope you know what I mean. In a Malawie oder Tanganjika tank you won´t find them, of course. We try to keep fish in a very natural environment. A very nice page where you can see typical German tanks is
www.einrichtungsbeispiele.de
Unfortunatelly I cannot minimize my pictures at 63 kb, I really don´t know why
I got elassoma okefenokee, which are pretty rare and expensive in Germany.
Boraras urophtalma, boraras maculata and trichopsis pumila (I really like small fish

)
Many greetings from Germany,
Barbara