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Corydoras

10K views 86 replies 17 participants last post by  hedgehog 
#1 ·
I just wanted to start a thread about the wonderful little fish, corydoras. I personally own four corydoras agassizii (spotted) that share a tank with a small school of black neon tetras.

I have enjoyed watching my cories interact with the other fish in tank and watch as they play. Corydoras are wonderful little fish that get along with most other fish, are very social, and help keep the our substrate clean. ;-)

Anyone else share my love of Corydoras and if so which are your favorite(s)? I
 
#33 ·
The spotted is definitely more rambunctious than my albinos ever were, and after I added him the playing doubled in my tank. He does something funny that alarmed me the first time I saw it; he goes up to the albino and wiggles his whiskers across the other's body (it looked like he was eating Paul's fins). I initially was horrified thinking I'd managed to find the only killer spotted cory, but then the albino didn't seem the least bit alarmed. Turns out it's some display of affection which is just adorable. Mixing species definitely changed the behavior in my tank.
 
#34 ·
I love my corys! I have 4 bronze corys and I think I've had them about 2 years and some months now. They spawned once when I changed their water and used warmer water. They laid about a hundred eggs. They ate almost all of the eggs over a 24 hour period. I managed to save maybe 10? I even saw one hatch. But because my tank is a deep 16 gallon, none survived. I doubt they could get to the top for air like they needed to. I have either two girls and two boys or one girl and three boys. There's one I'm just not sure about. She's bigger then the smallest guys but nowhere near as big as the one I call Big Momma! :p

They're super hardy. I've lost many fish in that 16 to mysterious illnesses and yet those corys are never affected. They just keep on swimming.

Here's a video of my babies and other fish in my 16!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxuabU5PtPQ
 
#35 ·
Let me start by saying what a beautiful aquarium. Yikes @ the spawn happening. That can definitely be a bad thing if you aren't expecting it. I've never tried to breed corydoras, but it looks like it would be a very delicate process, so with the parents in, the eggs never stood a chance. I was having a hard time following the cories, but I definitely know that one of them was a female. She was big. It's easier to gender them when they're napping together.
 
#37 ·
I'm getting a betta and a mystery snail for Christmas! I love the look of cories and by the sounds of things that have a cute personality. How many would I be able to fit in with the snail and betta?
 
#38 ·
First off, let me say that in order to be able to do that you would need a tank over 5 gallons. If you get the right species, you're looking at roughly an 1 inch of fish, some of them get bigger, so research the species first. Anything that falls in the pygmy category is usually smaller. I would honestly say that I would be most comfortable with hearing you have anything bigger than 7.5 gallons to house the betta and cories, which should be kept in at least a group of 4.

Pet shops should sell inexpensive 10 gal. kits. It would give everyone the space they need and you could house 2 more cories, which would be awesome since they prefer groups of 6.

Please forgive me if my grammar is off tonight. I'm apparently having an issue with it today. :-|

Do you have any other questions about corydoras? If so, we'd be happy to help out.
 
#43 ·
I couldn't resist yesterday and came home with another albino from petsmart since they were a dollar on sale. For just a dollar I didn't want to see the poor little guys looking sad in that tank. I'm always amused when you first bring one home when they had gravel or no substrate before; the first thing they do is bury their head in the sand and wiggle it around. :D
 
#44 ·
If only I had the $ at this moment, I would set up a giant cory tank. I love those little guys to death.

Misa, always happy to hear that a cory has been rescued. They are hard to resist. I personally think they are worth much more, but hey, Corydoras for a dollar just means we can accumulate more of the cute little guys for ourselves, right?
 
#47 ·
I personally think its easy because I couldn't get mine to stop. I never tried to get them to breed either it was just an accident. The first time two of my cories spawned was because I did a huge water change (80%) and wasn't careful with the water temp so it ended up being much colder than usual in the tank. That's the general way to get cories to spawn is to pour cold water into their tank so it mimics the rainy season which is when they breed in the wild. It may have also helped that they had been fasting themselves by choice for about a week before since they didn't like the replacement food we got and about two days before they spawned they got their favorite food which is high in protein and my mom overfed to make up for the not eating. After they spawned the first time they spawned again pretty much everytime the temperature in the tank dropped low enough for them. The tank is in front of a window and it would get drafty so they spawned every week from the middle of August until the middle of October when the female died.

If you want the cory babies to survive don't spawn in the community tank or take the eggs out after they are laid. The adult cories are major fans of eggs and will eat all of them. The best method would be to place the adults in a separate tank, barebottom or with sand, with lower water levels then pour cold water over them. I would do this at night and then take them out in the morning if they spawned. You should add a drop of methylene blue to prevent fungus. The eggs will hatch in 3-4 days depending on the temp of the water. The tank should have a heater and an air stone. Most breeders recommend feeding live foods. In theory you can feed them crushed up pellets but live food or at the least frozen food is the way to go.

Our babies are different since we didn't know they were there. They survived in the community tank because our betta took care of them. He carried them in his mouth after they hatched and put them in a place they could get into and out of but the adult cories couldn't. He also always sat between the adults and the babies so they wouldn't try to eat them when they could still easily fit in a cory's mouth. Since we didn't notice them until about 3 weeks after they had hatched they obviously survived on crushed pellets left over from the adults. After we found them we fed them frozen BBS and still crushed wafers. Now they exclusively eat crushed wafers and try to steal some of daddy's betta flakes.
 
#49 ·
Both our male and female were about 2 inches. The male was about 1.5 years old and the female was probable 8 months old (guessing based on how long we had her and the size she was when we bought her from Petsmart). I don't know the actual size they need to be though. My younger male was purchased at the same time as the female shows no interest in breeding yet. In my experience males grow slower than females as well which may factor in to breeding.
 
#53 ·
so for those of us that have corries in with their bettas, have any of you had problems with your betta stealing the corries' food? i give my corries sinking tablets and place them in with long reptile tweezers. they eat great but of course it takes them a bit of time. My female betta that lives with them is fed first so she's a little more content while they're eating but she will still go down and steal a whole tablet! that are as big as her head, mind you, lol. I'll often times lightly poke her with the tweazers and she'll drop it so i can give it back to them, but she does it every time, lol, the corries don't seem to mind though... they definately are not afriad of her, i've seen them chase her off, lol
 
#54 ·
I don't house my betta with my cories but I would expect there to be a food fight if I did. I give my little guys (the cories, mind you) Aqueon Shrimp Pellets. A lot of the ingredients in the pellets are ingredients that other fish like, too. My tetras will try to catch bites of the pellets as they sink, if they can get to it on time. Glad to hear that your cories are sticking up for their food. Just keep in mind that cories generally tend to enjoy the same ingredients in their food that bettas do...plus maybe a little bit of algae on the side.;-)
 
#64 ·
Maisy, you use a siphon with both. You just have to be careful when siphoning sand because you don't want to disturb it too much and create a dust cloud. It's hard to explain but you would siphon sand differently than you would gravel. The gravel is more likely to get food stuck between it.
 
#67 ·
Regarding food stealing, I used to put Tango in a breeders trap at feeding time. I fed him in there too, so he would associate it with food. I used Lee's three way, which is super clear and floats right in the tank. It was easier to scoop him into it cause he couldn't see it as well as, say, a mesh one.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#68 ·
I went on a pet-shop spree today and in the Petsmart they had a ton of panda cories and in another shop there was 1 panda all on his own! D: Could you combine cories from different shops? I also saw a beautiful betta! He was a white halfmoon with red blotches! I wonder if by boxing day he'll be there! (I do hope he isn't in that small cup for another week, though . . .)
 
#69 · (Edited)
Maisy, I would think that you could, however, I would quarantine the one guy if you decide to go that route. It's never easy to tell whether or not the fish are actually healthy. It would be easiest just to buy all the cories from the same pet shop so you know that they shared the same water and can diagnose illness a lot better. That's just my personal opinion. I know you've probably already heard this, but make sure you float your fish for at least 15 mins to let them adapt.

I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I think you're supposed to establish the corydoras first when putting them in with bettas. I really don't know if it's true, so hopefully someone who has a similar aquarium can help...
 
#71 ·
Some one was selling a lot of 3 cories at the local aquarium society Christmas meeting last night - an albino, a peppered and a bronze. One of my pandas died not long ago so I got those three as friends for the remaining two. I know I should have bought another two pandas instead, but my favourite LFS has now stopped stocking fish, and I don't want to give anyone else here my custom (they just aren't that good). I get all of my fish now from the meetings.
Hopefully when I get a big tank I will have a school of each. I thought the albino would freak me out, but I've actually fallen in love with him. :)
 
#72 ·
Cool! I thought having different kind of cories together isn't good? I love the pandas! <3
 
#74 ·
Had to share this adorable moment. My aquarium has a giant air stone and a filter, and the filter will push some of the bubbles across the aquarium. My oldest cory, Creepy, went up to the top for air, and somehow managed to get his mouth (or front of his head) caught in a bubble. In an attempt to free himself, he was circulated around the tank before managing to get himself loose. Creepy is now sitting at the bottom of the aquarium with this look that just says "that was so humiliating." Poor little guy.
 
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