Corydoras

[hedgehog]

I'm hedgehog lol. I was talking to the poster who wanted cories but I forgot to multiquote. They should know to cycle their tank before they get cories since they are highly sensitive to water conditions. Also the sand part was important.

[Rosso1011]

><!! My brain is completely fried tonight. I would just go to bed, but I'd be awake too early if I went now...

[Misakitty]

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

[Rosso1011]

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?

[Misakitty]

Exactly, I don't really have a whole lot of extra money to pay full price for one. :P I definitely plan to turn a 75 gal into a catfish tank, either pictus or striped raphael. Not corys I know, but still fun and friendly fish.

[bettafish15]

Breeding bronze cories is easy? How? Do they need live foods, the babies I mean?

[hedgehog]

Originally Posted by bettafish15

Breeding bronze cories is easy? How? Do they need live foods, the babies I mean?

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.

[Super Sly]

I often think about breeding cories and other fish but my problem is the room factor theres no room to do it here. Another thing that i was wondering is if there was a certain size the cories had to be before they could spawn.

[hedgehog]

Originally Posted by Super Sly

I often think about breeding cories and other fish but my problem is the room factor theres no room to do it here. Another thing that i was wondering is if there was a certain size the cories had to be before they could spawn.

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.

[MaisyDawgThirteen]

Originally Posted by Rosso1011

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.

Thanks! My Mum has already bought the 10 Gallon Kit! lol So, I could have 6 Corydoras!! I really like them. Your grammar seems perfectly fine to me. lol I do have one question, what food would I feed them? Would there be a special sinking food I should get? Also, could I mix different kinds or them, like Albino, Spotted, ect?