Betta and Cory Question

[Miss Mila]

In a few months I was thinking of getting a cory for my Betta I.V. I have him in a 5 gallon right now and don't plan on upgrading. My question is one or two corys? I don't want to overcrowd but I read that corys like company of their own kind. So what to do? One cory or two? Maybe no cory I don't know I need advice.

[Miss Mila]

You know I think after the research I have been doing that maybe I will wait til I get my ten gallon set up and do cories in it....better idea huh? I.V. is fine with his two snails.

[Meatpuppet]

ya good idea. with a five gallon the most i would put in the tank is 1 african dwarf frog, a few shrimp or snails.

cories, you should have at least three, but the more the better so with a ten gallon you could go with 4 or 5

[Flashygrrl]

I'm glad to hear you did your research, decided what was best and put your plans on hold until you could provide a suitable tank for all of them.

Now don't let those cute cories in the store sway you :)

[Little-Fizz]

I believe the minimum for cory cats is like 6, and for a good reason!

I only have one in my tank right now because the others died off... It was really weird. But hes going strong. It makes me sad though, I never see him and when I do he only darts out to get food really quickly then back into his hiding spot. When I had 6, they were all over my tank all the time. It was awesome, but now I have a new 20 gallon for him and his future buddies with nice black sand in it :)

Thats another thing, did you research about cories and sand?

I know people keep them in gravel and say its ok, heck thats what I'm doing. But they really fair better in sand. My little guys barbells are so messed up :( and my gravel is smooth.

[Miss Mila]

Yeah I researched a bit about cories and how they should have a soft substrate like sand. What I would like to do is in the future set up a ten gallon of cories. How many cories could I have happily in there? Oh wait should this go in the catfish section of the board? Ugh sorry I'm a newbie.

[Flashygrrl]

You could have 6 given you have decent filtration. Are you still going to move your betta or no?

[iamntbatman]

What are the dimensions of the 5-gallon tank? If you didn't want to upgrade, you could probably safely keep 5 or 6 pygmy cories and a betta in a 5 gallon tank, assuming it's not a tall tank with a small footprint like a hex tank.

[Miss Mila]

Im going to keep my Betta in the 5 gallon and just have a ten gallon for some cories. The Cory Cat is too darn cute I want a school for a ten gallon. So maybe 4-6 in a ten gallon if thats all I have in there?

[iamntbatman]

I think you could keep 4-6 regular-sized cories *and* the betta in a 10g with no worries.

If you kept the betta in the 5g and went with 4-6 regular-sized cories in the 10g, you could probably also put something else in the 10g. A couple of guppies or platies, a dwarf gourami or a couple of sparkling gouramis would be a good choice.