Cory Cats in a dirted tank with sand

Hey everyone.

Thought my little experience might be helpful to anyone considering a sand cap in a tank with Cory cats.

So about a month ago I decided to change the gravel I had capping the dirt in my 20 gallon in favor of a sand cap. When my cory cats start digging through the sand(which I had intended hence the thickness of my cap) dirt began to lift through. I figured this would probably go away after a few water changes but two weeks later no change. To make a long story short, my 20 started to look nasty and I noticed a breakout of BBA starting.

So this past week I divided up my tank. The back half is dirt capped in gravel and the front is just plain sand. I used large river rocks to divide the two so that there is no mixing.

The result... after one week my tank is clear of debris, the BBA is starting to disappear, and my cories still have sand to scavenge in.

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Comment by Robert Jango on January 21, 2013 at 10:56pm: Using your own explanation, shouldn't the half covered with sand have dirt lifting through?

Comment by Anthony Piti on January 21, 2013 at 11:42pm: Guess I should have put that better. There is no dirt under the sand except for 1/2 an inch under the hair grass.

Comment by Robert Jango on January 22, 2013 at 12:24am: Actually, I reread your post and the mistake was mine. You wrote, "the front is just plain sand." Anyway, it makes sense. Corys like to dig and if there's dirt in your tank they'll find it. They're great at digging up blackworms or anything else embedded in the substrate... an interesting bit of information for those who want to have dirt and corys.

Comment by Mr Meseeks on January 23, 2013 at 3:18pm: I had a 20 long dirt tank capped with sand, i had 6 corys and they never even got to the sand, i know you said you anticipated them digging, but im thinking maybe you still didnt make the cap thick enough?

Since that tank i redid it in a 29, i find it better to use 2 different caps, i used about 1 inch dirt capped with 1 inch of flourite then capped that with 1 inch of eco complete, because the 2 caps are different shapes/sizes i guess you could say, they hold the dirt down way better than 1 cap, the flourite is heavy enough to hold the dirt down, but its kinda sharp and doesnt look that good, the eco is light but looks better, also its supposed to be able to absorb nutrients from the water column and reuse them, so anything the dirt lets go an gets through the cap, the eco takes it in.

This way ive got 3 layers of substrate, all with there own nutrients, the corys dont mind the eco complete either.

Comment by Cam on May 4, 2013 at 1:10pm: I think I will try your idea of dividing the tank up, Anthony. What type of gravel and sand did you use exactly? I am having trouble finding a pea gravel that’s the right size and smooth for the cories.

Comment by Anthony Piti on May 4, 2013 at 2:21pm: The gravel was just TopFin gravel. I got the smallest size they had at Petsmart. The sand I used was pool filter sand that I bought at home depot. I did learn after setting up my tank this way that my problem was two-fold. There was a healthy colony of earthworms in the dirt and they would push some up at night. Then when the cories went digging around they would spread it around.

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