Gravel or sand for cories?

snail · Post by **snail** » 14 Feb 2007, 19:40

I'm going to set up a 78 gallon thats going to have a school of cories in it. I'd rater use normal gravel (not sarp) but I've read sand is better for cories. Does it matter?

Post by **Marc van Arc** » 14 Feb 2007, 21:02

I would choose the sand. Your Corys will love it, won't hurt their barbels and imo it looks way better than gravel.

snail · Post by **snail** » 14 Feb 2007, 21:22

My problem is the thought of cleaning sand. I did have a tank with sand bottom once and I hated that I couldnt get in there with the hoover and give it a good clean like I do with my gravel tanks. Mabe I don't hhave te meathod down right!

Freshman · Post by **Freshman** » 15 Feb 2007, 00:36

Use river sand. 2cm will do. Cory will help you clean the sand.

PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn · Post by **PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn** » 15 Feb 2007, 01:21

hopefully as i posted this [urk=http://www.cichlid-forum.com/videos.php]link[/url] without the offending c!chlid word then the filter wont break the link itself, theres a video showwing how to clean gravel

i've kept corys on gravel, read that they prefered sand, so put a "saucer" of sand in htere for them, and they were in the saucer the whole time, so moved the whole tank over to sand and the corys love it.

also, due to the grain size of sand being much smaller the cr@p dosent get inbetween and accumilate. take for instance 1 of my mbuna tanks, every week i thoroughly gravel vacume, this week i did a tank stripdown, and washed the gravel, the water came out darker than what i normally get out of an external after 2 months, and this was with me really cleaning it.

however on another tank i have reef spheres (thier about1-2mm diameter) so are inbetween sand and gravel, and theres practicly no dirt in there. and my geophagus tank has is cand and is allways clear (i get VERY little when i vacume, i dont know why either, but the sand is easy to clean)

edit the link doesnt work, so either type in http://www.cichlid-forum.com/videos.php (with the missing letters) or wait untill 1 of the addmins fix the link

Post by **Marc van Arc** » 15 Feb 2007, 17:27

Freshman wrote:Use river sand. 2cm will do.

I take it you mean 2 mm

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 15 Feb 2007, 17:34

Marc van Arc wrote:
Freshman wrote:Use river sand. 2cm will do.
I take it you mean 2 mm

2mm or finer grain is what you want, but I think "Freshman" meant 2cm(3/4") depth, rather than grain size.

--
Mats

Post by **Marc van Arc** » 15 Feb 2007, 19:05

I see. Yes, that something rather different. But will a layer of 2 cm be sufficient for the plants?

snail · Post by **snail** » 15 Feb 2007, 19:15

Marc van Arc wrote:I see. Yes, that something rather different. But will a layer of 2 cm be sufficient for the plants?

Yeh it will be ok

Thanks for the advice I'm coming around to the sand idea.

Bas Pels · Post by **Bas Pels** » 15 Feb 2007, 19:57

Marc van Arc wrote:But will a layer of 2 cm be sufficient for the plants?

It depends of the plants, of course: I can grop Hygrophilia in 2 cm, Elodae, but not large Echionodorus, which would require additional clay anyway.

However, for growing up tanks, any plant is good, thus in growing up tanks (30 cm high) I have 1-2 cm. In showtanks (much larger) I have an average of 5 cm.

Freshman · Post by **Freshman** » 16 Feb 2007, 00:59

Marc van Arc wrote:
Freshman wrote:Use river sand. 2cm will do.
I take it you mean 2 mm

Sorry sorry. Yup, MatsP is right. I mean 2cm depth. Just enough for the cory to play around.

I'm using floating plants for my cory tank thus sand depth is not an issue.

snail · Post by **snail** » 16 Feb 2007, 10:57

It will be fine for the plants I want. Won't it tend to drift about alot though and leave bare patches on the tank bottom?

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 16 Feb 2007, 11:08

If you have about 15-20 mm depth, and you haven't got a very strong current in the tank (which is not a great thing anyways if you want to keep corys) then it's fine [of course, also be carefull when filling with water].

Any bare patches that you do get (from uncarefull water filling for example) are pretty easy to "wave" back in place or smooth out with your hand.

--
Mats

snail · Post by **snail** » 16 Feb 2007, 14:17

Ok, so if I go for sand is there anything I should know about what type of sand and where I sould get it from?

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 16 Feb 2007, 14:47

I've been using "play sand", which is the stuff designed for childrens sand-play-pits and such.

There's sand available in the fish-shops too, at about 6-10 times the price. I bought two bags of 10kg for £0.98 each the other weekend at Tesco's (big supermarket chain in the UK). Most fish-shops want something like £3 for a 5kg bag.

Play-sand is "silica sand", which is nicely rounded, fine-grained, inert (no chemical reaction with the water), and generally clean. [You still need to rince it several times with clean tap-water!]

--
Mats

PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn · Post by **PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn** » 16 Feb 2007, 23:03

howd you find the play sand. i've bought the silica sand from the LFS and i personally like the look of it, but it isnt cheap, (£12.50for 25kg) but i was considering the play sand as i need to buy 4 bags in order to do my 5foot 3foot and 4foot tank, as well as increasing the ammount in my 12"cube and spending £50 quid just on sand isnt something i want to do unless i have to

plus i'm a bit skint. i just payed £190 for all the bits to make the stand for the 5foot and 4foot tanks. aswell as plumbin bits to connect them up to sumps.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 19 Feb 2007, 12:28

Well, find a BIG Tesco's store (one of those called Tesco's Extra or some such), and they have 10kg bags at 98p each. (so that's 4.90 for 50kg).

Or you can get playsand in 25kg bags for 3-4 quid in most garden centres. Just call them before you travel far, since it's not exactly the right season for filling play-pits this time of year, so they may not have it in stock...

Just re-read the message: do you mean "How can I find play-sand?" or "How do you like the play-sand?". On the latter, I find it working quite nicely. I've got "half-n-half" with fine gravel and some sand from B&Q in my RIO400 tank, and one of my new (to me - it's 25 years old) tanks in the fish-room is using the Tesco's play-sand. The latter may be a tad finer or maybe it's just a shade lighter...

--
Mats

davenia7 · Post by **davenia7** » 23 Feb 2007, 15:46

I just did the gravel to sand upgrade with a tank upgrade with playsand (Wash it good). My cories have been 100 times more animated since the switch, they play in it all day, so much that I had to add a pre-filter on my filter to save my impeller.
I potted my plants in clay pots bc a lot of people told me that the sand can choke out the roots. I used little 2 inch clay pots that I soaked for 48 hours first and then gravel from my old tank to fill it in.
Everyone is soooooo happy.

PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn · Post by **PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn** » 23 Feb 2007, 23:46

well i'll pick up several bags of play sand, and with the money i save on sand i'll buy extra bogwood

i just hope its not too light. though my mbuna will get used to it eventually (they did in both of the other tanks) though i do prefer the golden colour rather than the silver sand.

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 24 Feb 2007, 00:43

The issue of hydrovacing the sand repeatedly comes up as a potentntial problem. It is not a problem.

Sand is lighter than gravel and all that is neccessary to hydrovac it iis to reduce the velocity of the siphon hose by crimping to adjust the flow to optimum rate.

Most plants do very well planted in sand. I do prefer to plant my larger show plants like the various sword plants. I do this because I move them from tank to tank and because they are easier to fertilize in pots. I use Nutrafin
Plant Gro Sticks seem to perform as advertised in that the sticks appear to last approximately one year.

You might be very surprised at how large the potted plant can grow in a relatively small pot. I use a lot of DIY pots which are merely the bottom three inches of a clear plastic 2 liter plastic juice bottle. This type of pot blends into the substrate of a planted tank and the plant is not competeing for nutrients with adjacent plants.

A blend of sand and gravel is also Corydoras safe. Just keep the gravel content at or below 25% of the volume of substrate.

Just an addendum:
Another reason I use a lot of potted plants is one of economy. I like to use the expensive Florabase substrate with my plants but it is expensive however,
a 12 pound bag goes a long ways when only used in pots and topped off with sand to confine it from being disturbed by rooting Corys.