# Mineralized soil, top substrate, cory cat fish



## AquaMark91 (Feb 6, 2014)

I'm planning to build a planted tank with mineralized soil and cap it with sand to make it cory cat fish friendly. Reading from all the forums though, found out that fine sand/substrate cuts the circulation throughout the bottom layer, hence bubbles in my 29 gal tank with dirt top with sand. My question is anyone know a cory cat friendly substrate that doesn't cut circulation? 

I heard flourite is good except that it has hard, maybe even sharp edges. Eco-complete is cory friendly except its light so im guessing my plants will be flying by the end of the day.


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## jonnyboy (Mar 13, 2013)

Have a 4 month old dirted tank with sand cap and cories and no problems so far. Fingers crossed now I guess though....never read anything about poor circulation but I guess it does make sense


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## longgonedaddy (Dec 9, 2012)

AquaMark91 said:


> I heard flourite is good except that it has hard, maybe even sharp edges.













My cories are doing quite well two years living on fluorite, to the point they've reproduced and I have several more than what I started with. Short barbels are caused by poor water quality, not substrate.


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## AquaMark91 (Feb 6, 2014)

longgonedaddy said:


> My cories are doing quite well two years living on fluorite, to the point they've reproduced and I have several more than what I started with. Short barbels are caused by poor water quality, not substrate.


First, thanks for the replies folks :icon_bigg Second, nice cory is that a melini cory? Third, 2 years huh? Sounds great! Fluorite it is i guess. Last, do you have any tips/advice on cory babies surviving? 

At the moment, im full on war with algea :angryfire and i think im starting to get it to go down. But before that, i had some kind of sword plant that was getting infested with algea so transferred it to my CRS tank. Few weeks later notice tadpole like things in it. After looking at it for a while with a magnifying glass and some good lighting, i think it was a pepered cory fry. Through out that day notice them going up to surface but kept getting carried by the current from the HOB filter so guessing thats what killed most of them. A week later found one live fry and placed it in a fry net but unfortunately it also died. :angel:


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## JwDiedrich16 (Feb 8, 2014)

if you do more water changes add more platnts cut down on feeding and on the hours of light the alge problem might cut back also try adding a air stone?just a few ideas?


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## longgonedaddy (Dec 9, 2012)

AquaMark91 said:


> First, thanks for the replies folks :icon_bigg Second, nice cory is that a melini cory? Third, 2 years huh? Sounds great! Fluorite it is i guess. Last, do you have any tips/advice on cory babies surviving?
> 
> At the moment, im full on war with algea :angryfire and i think im starting to get it to go down. But before that, i had some kind of sword plant that was getting infested with algea so transferred it to my CRS tank. Few weeks later notice tadpole like things in it. After looking at it for a while with a magnifying glass and some good lighting, i think it was a pepered cory fry. Through out that day notice them going up to surface but kept getting carried by the current from the HOB filter so guessing thats what killed most of them. A week later found one live fry and placed it in a fry net but unfortunately it also died. :angel:



It's a metae. And yes, two years. And I've kept cories on fluorite in the past with no issues. Maybe they don't get to half-bury themselves rooting like they do in sand, but mine don't seem to mind one bit. 

This is the first time I've had cories spawn and the fry make it to any appreciable size, and I did nothing to help. I have a dense tangle of chainsword, with a lot of mulm under it. I assume they hid and fed nicely in there.


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## kruzerman (May 24, 2012)

What about pool filter sand? Still too fine. The PFS I have is not that fine to me compared to the play sand I have in another tank but I am wondering what the opinions are about PFS and cories.


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## AquaMark91 (Feb 6, 2014)

to JwDiedrich16, i bet more water change will probably help. As for the lighting ive cut back from 10 to 8 hrs but i don't see much improvement. I think the main problem is with CO2 not circulating as good as it should be. So will add some kind of current maybe. So thank you for some sugestions.

to kruzerman, Haven't tried PFS just did a bit of survey on peoples idea of it in aquarium and so far seems good. Don't have info about how well cory and PFS go tho. So will look into it more, but also thanks for the suggestion.


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## cjipping (Jan 17, 2014)

longgonedaddy said:


> It's a metae. And yes, two years. And I've kept cories on fluorite in the past with no issues. Maybe they don't get to half-bury themselves rooting like they do in sand, but mine don't seem to mind one bit.


This is my observation as well. 

Had 8 Fluorite tanks over a 3 year period, some capped with sand, some not. Always had Corys and never had a barbel issue. They do root around in the sand capped a bit more, but are still healthy and happy in fluorite only.


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