My C. habrosus and fry!

[Leucosticta]

Hello! I'd like to post some pics of my habrosus colony! I bought 10 really small, 1 cm every fish, and they grew bigger and beautiful. I had 7 females and 3 males. After some month a female died so now i have 3M and 6 F.

They are great egg-layers!

Here is one of the males


babies


a group (4F, 2M and a baby)

[Richard B]

well done with the spawning - this is a great looking species, a really nice cory.

[OldMan]

Good job with the breeding and nice pictures Leucosticta. How big do the adults need to be before they will breed? Mine are only between 2 and 2.5 cm and are new in my tanks.

[apistomaster]

After raising a variety of Corydoras spp I have only continued to raise my Dwarf Corys. Both C. hastatus and C. habrosus. They each are in their own permanent colonies in 20 gal Long tanks with Cherry and Crystal Red Shrimp, respectively. I also began with ten of each and the size of each group get larger all the time. C. hastatus have been the really good producers since I am up to about 90+ counting the larvae hiding out. C. habrosus have been less productive but they lay larger eggs and seems in fewer numbers but I am now up to about 35 or 40. I really enjoy their behaviors and seeing them in assorted sizes like yours.
I am soon splitting my group of C. hastatus between their 20 Long and a 55 gal along with another species of shrimp. The two kinds of animals go together in a well planted tank and I am looking forward to seeing how many Corydoras hastatus I'll end up with.
For awhile, I had both Corydoras spp together and they both bred freely.

C. habrosus do begin spawning at 3/4 inch for males and 1 inch for females.

[I_Xeno]

Nice looking corydoras !

[OldMan]

If they can breed at 3/4 to 1 inch, mine are large enough. Next focus needs to be conditioning and I may need to manipulate my water. Its usually something I avoid but a pH of 7.6 and a hardness of about 12 GH looks like its at the extreme of what these guys can tolerate so it might be time to mix in some RO and get softer and lower pH for them. If its not needed I'd sure like to know because I don't like doing it.

[apistomaster]

If they can breed at 3/4 to 1 inch, mine are large enough. Next focus needs to be conditioning and I may need to manipulate my water. Its usually something I avoid but a pH of 7.6 and a hardness of about 12 GH looks like its at the extreme of what these guys can tolerate so it might be time to mix in some RO and get softer and lower pH for them. If its not needed I'd sure like to know because I don't like doing it.

Hi Oldman,
I see no problems with your water. I raise my Corydoras habrosus and C. hastatus in my tap water. My tap water has a pH of 7.4 and KH~6 and GH ~7. I keep them at 78 to 80*F. A lower temperature might be better but my fish room is at that temp so that is what they get. I mostly raise and keep warm water fish like Discus, Apistogramma, Sturisoma, PeckoltiaL134 and Hypancistrus spp. My dwarf Corydoras and Shrimp are kind of my hobby within the hobby and most of those would prefer cooler water.

Clean and well circulating water are more important factors. Good conditioning of the breeders is important. I have been encouraging other breeders to try using chilled freshly hatched brine shrimp as a conditioning and fry food. They remain usable for up to three days if the cleaned nauplii are kept refrigerated in clean brine water. I also use live black worms but cultured Grindal worms are absolutely perfect for these fish.

Spawning is easily accomplished by skipping the regular water changes for two weeks and resume them using cool enough water to cause the tank temperature to drop by 5 to 10 *F and allowed to rise back up to normal. They will often begin spawning within 15 minutes and will continue but spawning activities will begin to diminish over the next week. You just keep repeating this periodically and the eggs and fry keep coming.
I recommend providing Java Moss, floating plant cover like Ceratophyllum(Hornwort) and some Anubias on wood. I am using two large sponge filters in the 20 gal Long set ups. One is air lift mode and the other has a MaxiJet 600 power head(160gph). They love brisk currents. I also provide a "rubble pile" of hollow ceramic bio-media to provide additional cover and foraging places for the fry. I don't have a photo of my C. habrosus set up but it is identical to this C. hastatus breeding tank shown below. There is more floating Hornwort in their tanks than is shown.

[OldMan]

Apistomaster, if I understood your post right, the only thing I need to do to get these guys ready is remove them from their present environment where they are housed with other fish and condition them on live and frozen high protein foods. It almost sounds too easy.
Your statement that my water seems OK surprised me because I know that a 12 GH is fairly hard and from what I had read these fish were not especially good in hard water. Do I need to worry about the water chemistry, other than keeping it clean, to rear the fry?
Please forgive my ignorance, I am not new to fish but have always focused breeding on developing live brearers. I would love to have tons of these fish and am actually trying to get another dozen shipped in because I don't think the 15 I have are nearly enough. The other thing it will do for me is give me a separate genetic pool to draw from because I'm not too wild about in-breeding. I am almost certain the ones I have are tank bred locally because that's the kind of place that I got them. The trouble with that is they are probably siblings.
I was a bit concerned about colony breeding habrosus because I have read that many people remove eggs from breeding tanks to rear them separately. Is it best to keep them in a colony or to try to rear the fry separately?

[apistomaster]

I found my success rates were as good using a colony breeding approach as separate spawning and a whole lot easier.
I think adding more breeders could not hut although 15 is also an adequate number. Unless you know for sure that your breeders were tank raised, I would assume they are actually wild fish since few people are raising and selling any tank raised C. habrosus.

Colony breeding really is that simple.

[OldMan]

Thanks for that apistomaster. My shipment arrived today so they are being acclimated while I write this. I always use drip acclimation so I expect a good outcome.

[apistomaster]

Hi OldMan(from one to another),
I am going off on a tangent but it is usually better to equalize the temperatures of the shipping bags then plop and drop. During shipping CO2 builds up, dissolves in the water and lowers the pH. This is good for two reasons.
1.CO2 is a mild anesthetic so it calms shipped fish in transit.
2. When the pH drops below 7.0 ammonia forms the much less toxic ammonium ions. It is Ammonia that is so dangerous.
The drip method means opening the bag while you are dripping in tank water. Once the bag is opened, the excess CO2 blows off and can cause a rise in pH above 7.0. Then the ammonium converts to the toxic ammonia form.
Most of us who ship or receive a lot of shipped fish do not allow this to happen by removing the shipped fish from the bags ASAP.
I know this sounds counterintuitive but it is best to use this method.

[OldMan]

Thanks for the info for future use. The ones I was acclimating have been in the tank about a day and are very active this evening. I don't know that they are breeding but are definitely showing a lot of attention to two of the females.

[penycat]

Alright! I need to thank everyone here, this topic answered all my questions about these little guys. My 7 year old has habrosus and we're wanting to move them into a species only tank for colony breeding...this is perfect info and thank you!

[OldMan]

Penycat, the source you need for more habrosus, I read your thread, could be FLguppiesplus. That is where I found some.

[penycat]

awesome! I'll check there and thank you! I've got his tank mostly set up, I've got to go out and get some sand substrate for them, otherwise, we're ready to go! I'm excited and he is too...(love that at least one of my family is "into fish" the way I am...lol)
Thanks again!

[Leucosticta]

after a quite long absence i'm happy to read such a long and interesting topic!

It seems all the answers have been given, anyway for habrosus is very easy for ready female to be distinguished, they have huge bellies and are large as 2 males!

[apistomaster]

I am going to revise my position about water softness when it comes to breeding Corydoras habrosus. I began using RO water to replace water after water changes and it has greatly improved the number of fry I am getting from them. I lowered my original TDS from ~340 ppm down to ~100 ppm and it really helped. I also lowered my pH to 6.8 to 7.0 from 7.4. I did this for the benefit of the Crystal Red Shrimp but it also seems to be beneficial for Corydoras habrosus.

[OldMan]

Thanks for the update Apistomaster. I'm going on vacation soon but when I get back my summer growing pond will be ready for some fry and that will leave me an empty to try the low TDS water for my habrosus. Right now they are cleanup crew in that same tank so I'll try using straight RO for a couple of water changes.

[Leucosticta]

Hi, I use only RO water, i' ve just checked the pH with Tetra liquid test and it was 5
C. habrosus after some weeks of silence laid some eggs last week... no summer holydays for them