Corydoras And Gravel

I made a post on here looking for suggestions of different fish to stock my 45 gallon tank with. For bottom dwellers, corydoras were recommended. I've been reading up on them and am interesting in getting a small school of 6 to add to my tank.

However, I've been seeing mixed information on whether they cories do okay with gravel substrate or not. Does any body have experience with corydoras and gravel? How do they fare?

 

Hi, although corys do prefer sand they can be kept on gravel as long as it isn't so big that food drops down where they can't get to it, it's not sharp & you keep it clean with a regular maintenance regime.

 

I have pea gravel with cories. They seem happy and healthy.

 

Sand would be preferable when it comes to Cories. But you could use softer gravel like pea gravel, like David mentioned or a type of plant substrate because it's soft as well

Most people say that the substrate is too hard and their barbels get damaged however, it depends on the water quality. If you have good water conditions you'll have happy Cories

 

Agree for 100% with @Coradee

 

I agree as well. As long as the gravel is small and smooth, I think they are ok. My avatar shows 3 of my cories on smooth small gravel.

 

Coradee & DoubleDutch are some of the most experienced cory people here and I agree with them 100%, as long as smooth and kept clean gravel is more than ok but sand is preffered. I keep mine both ways because my wife and daughter won't let me remove the gravel from their 55 gallon guppy mansion.

 

Thanks for the feedback, everyone! I think my gravel is pretty similar to the picture DoubleDutch posted, so I think when we're ready to add more fish, we may go with a school of cories!

toolman "guppy mansion"? That's hilarious.

 

Did a double take with doubledutchs pic. Looks just like my tank. Lol