What does it mean when after a few epochs the training is stopped with "Minimum gradient reached". It happens with neural network with 2 or 3 hidden layers (20-30 neurones in a layer). I make a training in Matlab with trainbr-function. After such a short training ANN is not good at all (a lot of errrors more than 50%).
You should try various of parameter in the neural network training. I never use the built in neural network in matlab, in fact, I write the neural network myself.