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C. Adolfi

Nick16

Member
Joined
13 Aug 2008
Messages
1,759
Location
Surrey, UK
Hi all, quick question regarding cory's.

i know they prefer to be kept on sand but can i keep corries on Black unipack gravel and akadama. My 240L tank has 'islands' with akadama and then the foreground is B.Gravel. will they be ok on this substrate.

My thinking was that akadama is soft anyway and it only gets softer! however will their nuzzling (sp?) cause cloudiness in the water.

cheers.
 
Hi Nick. I would have thought they'd be okay - mine are happy on Eco-Complete which is fairly similar. Adolfi's are my favourite Cory - I think they look fab, especially on black gravel. How many are you getting?
 
well i will of course get a group. perhaps 6-10. i take it they will be fine with M.praecox as they are small rainbows they shouldnt bother cory's???
 
As long as the gravel is fine enough and not sharp or anything, then they'll be fine. I'm pretty sure they'll be okay with those rainbows too.
 
thats awesome news, ive never kept corries before! anyway, i have another question.........

Will M.praecox (small rainbowfish - 6cm fully grown) eat Amano shrimp and/or Cherry shrimp?

i have asked this before and never really got an answer.
 
Everything I read suggests the whole 'cory's don't like gravel' is a myth, they come from all around the world across a widely mixed choice of substrate in nature. I've had them on gravel, sand, EcoComplete (which is actually quite rough) and they've all been fine.
 
yeah, loads of people (mostly newbies) religiously follow 'corries must be kept on sand' rule. i always thought i could get away with it.

can anyone answer my shrimp question. (in red)
 
I don't think anyone can predict fish behaviour, it depends on the fish. Having said that, at 6cm they aren't large fish and small Rainbowfish aren't known for eating shrimp. I think you'll be ok, but you can only try it and see what happens. I've never kept them though.
 
nry said:
Everything I read suggests the whole 'cory's don't like gravel' is a myth, they come from all around the world across a widely mixed choice of substrate in nature. I've had them on gravel, sand, EcoComplete (which is actually quite rough) and they've all been fine.

They tend to generalise suggestions that are true.
Corys are silt sifters and therefore smaller grained substrates are best, the smoother the better.

Sand is ideal for them and you will see them display their natural feeding behaviour sifting the sand through their gills.

With small grain gravel they won't display their sand sifting anymore so you aren't seeing their natural behaviour. However they will be able to move the substrate around.

Larger gravel they won't be able to move around.

Coarse is a 'questionable' statement. all substrate including sand has sharp edges and is coarse if you look at it close enough. there is no such thing as a perfectly smooth substrate grain. The problem with obviously sharp grained substrates is that the Corys barbels become worn and they are very prone to infection as they are constantly digging into the dirty substrate (there is no such thing as a clean substrate.)

So what they should actually be saying is if you want to see corys displaying their natural behaviour then you want a tiny grain substrate like sand.

If you read Eco-Complete's statement on their product it actually states 'not suitable for soft bellied fish'. this is again open to question. Which fish are 'soft bellied?'

So in summary if you have eco-complete or 103mm gravel, then corys will be fine and shouldn'tBUT they won't be behaving naturally which is after all what we want really.

Doesn't have to be sand but it does have to be minute grain for them to fully behave as they would in nature.

They aren't like us. Take a city boy to live in the country for a year and after the novelty wears off he complains its too quiet. Take a country boy into the city and after the novelty wears off he complains about the noise. Put a fish into any situation and they make the best out of what is provided. They have no voice :)

AC
 
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