Corydoras duplicareus or C. adolfoi

cincy · Post by **cincy** » 29 Dec 2006, 22:12

These were sold to me as axelrodi, but clearly are not. These three fish are spawning, but so far no fry. The eggs are a bit larger than typcial corys and have a brown/yellow tint. I only find 6-10 at time.

Are these duplicareus or adolfoi or some of each?

Sorry for the bad pics, but they like to hide in the Javamoss are rarely come out. I did not want to move them to a photo tank as I'm still finding eggs.

Thanks

tigertimtim · Post by **tigertimtim** » 29 Dec 2006, 23:07

adolfi the band along the back isnt as thick ?

kim m · Post by **kim m** » 30 Dec 2006, 12:08

From the pics I'd say C. adolfoi, but you can only be shure if you feel the pectoral fin spine. If it's rough with bristles, it's C. duplicareus. If it's slim, it's C. adolfoi.

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 31 Dec 2006, 16:34

They look like Corydoras duplicareous but the colors are lighter in your photos than my C. dupicareous but I lean toward C. duplicareous based on their overall similarity especially the orange blotch above and behind the operculum. They probably are darker in your tank than in the photos, correct?
Since they are laying or at least you are only finding a small number of eggs consider transferring the eggs to a net breeder in very clean water,with an air stone and some methylene blue. Maybe if they are fertile you will get them to hatch and the fry off to a good start.
Either species is well worth putting a little extra effort out for them.
EDIT: I got to looking at my C. duplicareous after posting and I found 3 eggs attached to a tip of a swordplant leaf. I removed them and did as advised above. The tank has many snails and this species is not a prolific egg layer so finding eggs is a surprise. I guess it 'tis the season. Many Corys spawn in the Northern Hemisphere's winter. I have been trying to just restore them to health. They were in terrible and emaciated shape when they came in. I just had not thought them to be in that good of shape this soon.
Now I have to set up a snail free spawning tank and keep pouring the blackworms to them. Now it's my Corydoras C-121's turn!

cincy · Post by **cincy** » 06 Jan 2007, 21:41

Thanks for the help.

Is there a page somewhere to help identifiy fish of this type? Gold sholdered, spotted corys?

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 06 Jan 2007, 22:37

There is an article on breeding Corydoras duplicareous under Shane's World, Breeding Articles, located near the bottom of the page if you scroll down you'll find it.
There is a good photo also.
There is a group of very similar appearing Corydoras.
I could see yours being adolfi but I don't remember noticing the gold or orange blotch on them but they do have a narrow back stripe and light colored body as shown in your photo. Also try the search feature to see if one like yours turns up.

cincy · Post by **cincy** » 09 Mar 2007, 02:35

These fish are now breeding regularly for me.

From the various comments above and other reading, I'm leaning towards duplicareous.

but...
Ian Fuller's breeding reports list the egg size to be similar to paleatus. These eggs are much larger. 50% larger? probably twice the volume. And these are very sticky on the day they are laid. The stickiest cory eggs I have see so far. Eggs range in color from clear with a white dot/center to a yellow/browning tint.

I have also been getting a large number of fungused eggs. I have tested various levels of methylene blue from 0 to 6 drops per gallon with little impact on the results. I have been getting 0 to 6 fry from each batch of 20-30 eggs. I have been removing the eggs to small tubs with an airstone and when I do get fry, daily 50% water changes from the parent's tank. Any ideas or help here to improve yields?

Thanks

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 09 Mar 2007, 03:08

cincy,
I have the same trouble and haven't figured out how to get better results. I have come to think this problem is wide spread. I will use the following as an example but you can plug in any expensive Corydoras name you choose and it won't change the facts. Cory. duplicareous/adolphi whatever.
Consider: Corydoras sterbai. I have raised ~1000 fry from 8000 eggs this season. These catfish lay plenty of eggs and if they all hatched and grew up why would the market price for tank raised Corydoras stay as high as it has?
They are farmed commercially. Retail prices are commonly $10 to $15 each.
There are difficulties in acheiving consistently high hatch and fry survival rates or they would be sell for $4.00 each at your LFS.
Just like common aeneus and paleatus but C. sterbai are not as easy to raise. I have tried clean/dirty, chemicals/no chemicals/soft acid.hard alkaline, high/lower temperature and light/no light and many different combinations. Sometimes I get a lot of fish most of the time just a few.

I sometimes think we forget about the artifacts of human nature when we read fish breeding recipe articles. They are somewhat like the adage,"history is written by the victorious."
Reading about all the failures isn't an article that was fun to write.
I don't know why some of the wild or more recently domesticated Corydoras are harder to breed than we might have inferred from what we have read. I only know that it is so for me and by gauging something like the marketplace prices for tank raised fish one has indirect but objective evidence that they are challenging to breed.