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I bought three cory's today and I have a smooth gravel bottom. Will they be ok?

On a scale of "bad" to "ideal", smooth gravel is somewhere in the middle. It also depends a bit on the size of the gravel, but corys will do best on a fine grain, smooth sand. Their natural way to look for food is "up to the eyeballs" in the substrate.

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Mats

MatsP wrote:On a scale of "bad" to "ideal", smooth gravel is somewhere in the middle. It also depends a bit on the size of the gravel, but corys will do best on a fine grain, smooth sand. Their natural way to look for food is "up to the eyeballs" in the substrate.

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Mats

How hard will it be to switch out the substrates?

xshainax wrote:How hard will it be to switch out the substrates?

Given that I know nothing about your tank or what kind of gravel, etc, it's a bit hard to say. I have removed substrate with a wide syphon hose and then added the new substrate in its place. I didn't find it hard, but the bigger the substrate grain is, the harder it is to syphon. And make sure the new substrate is 100% clean - clean it until the water runs clear, then rinse at least twice more, and test by adding to a bucket of water - since you are adding the sand to the tank, there is a good chance you'll get a little bit of cloudiness no matter what you do, but making sure the sand is SUPER clean will help.

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Mats

MatsP wrote:

xshainax wrote:How hard will it be to switch out the substrates?

Given that I know nothing about your tank or what kind of gravel, etc, it's a bit hard to say. I have removed substrate with a wide syphon hose and then added the new substrate in its place. I didn't find it hard, but the bigger the substrate grain is, the harder it is to syphon. And make sure the new substrate is 100% clean - clean it until the water runs clear, then rinse at least twice more, and test by adding to a bucket of water - since you are adding the sand to the tank, there is a good chance you'll get a little bit of cloudiness no matter what you do, but making sure the sand is SUPER clean will help.

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Mats

The only thing I am really worried about is trying to keep them alive, I lost 6 after ammonia killed them

Is it a mature tank/filter? if it is you shouldn't have problems with ammonia. I'll be doing a major change of tanks soon (moving substrate, fish and decorations to a newer tank) and here's my plan.

1) get a spare tank or any type of temporary container
2) fill this spare tank/container with water from the existing tank
3) move the filter over to the spare tank/container and have it running asap (this is important to ensure your biological filtration continues!)
4) Catch the fish and move them over to the temporary tank/container with the filter running.
5) Now you're free to change the substrate in the main tank.