Breeding Corydoras aeneus

[MichaelC95]

Hello , I am new to the forum and had some questions about breeding this species. First off, I will be using a 20 gallon long aquarium with sand substrate. I will be using a seperater to condition the males and females. Here are my questions. What conditioning food? Water temp? How many individuals? Also after removing the fish after the spawning do I have to remove eggs from spawning surfaces? Any help will be appreciated and any other advise or processes will be would be very helpful!

[pleco_breeder]

It sounds like you're doing more than is necessary for this species. When I used to spawn these, I simply set the heater at 80 degrees and fed them heavily with sinking pellet foods. I also use a 4 inch crock dish half full of gravel and a couple teaspoons of blackworms in any cory breeding attempt. When the females look like they are ready to explode, disconnect the heater and do a heavy water change with cooler water. A drop of 8-10 degrees with the water change is the goal and aeneus don't really need any change in TDS etc to trigger a spawn. Early the next morning, plug the heater back in. Most well conditioned pairs will spawn with the first water change. If they don't spawn, give them another few days and repeat the process. I personally prefer to use 10 gallon tanks for most corys as it keeps the resulting fry closer to their food. The eggs aren't particularly prone to fungus.

Larry

[MatsP]

I will be using a seperater to condition the males and females.

May I ask why? I'm not as experienced a cory breeder as some many of the other members here, but I find that most corys breed with very little effort, and C. aeneus is considered one of the very easiest to breed. It shouldn't require much more than a good amount of food, and perhaps a large, cool water change to get them to spawn. These fish have even been known to spawn with only females in the tank, so I'm not at all convinced keeping the females separated from the males will have any beneficial effect at all - and may indeed be detrimental in the sense that the females still lay eggs - but with no males, the eggs will be infertile.

Most people who breed these fish keep them in groups of three, five or six, with more males than females,e.g. 2m/1f, 3m/2f, 4m/2f. If the fish aren't mature in the shop, try to get a few smaller ones and a few larger ones - the larger ones are more likely to be female.

[Caveat emptor: I have not kept C. aeneus, but I have bred C. sterbai and C. metae and had spawns of either C. similis or C. weitzmanni]

--
Mats

[MichaelC95]

The reason for the seperater is that people I ask say that you should condition them seperatly. Also are sterbai fun to breed and are they hard. Also I have a aquaclear 30 on the tank with a sponge on the intake is it okay to use it during the spawning.
Thanks

[MatsP]

I found C. sterbai relatively easy to breed - but I've found that some people struggle to breed fish that another person finds very easy and the other way around. But if you get a group of already captive bred fish, most corys are relatively easy to breed. If the parents are wild-caught, it can be a bit harder to breed them.

Don't know the US filters much.

And I don't think you need to condition them separately - they certainly aren't separated in nature.

--
Mats

[corybreed]

Corydoras aeneus are easy to breed. A 20 gallon aquarium is more that enough room for a group of 8-12 aeneus. There is no need to separate males and females. Water temperature in the mid 70's is fine. A varied diet consisting of a good protein based sinking pellets supplemented with frozen blood worms and or live Black worms if you have them available will get the fish in spawning condition. As has been already suggested a large water change with a drop in temperature of 10 degrees can trigger spawning. Aeneus deposit their eggs everywhere in the tank, on the glass, plants etc. You can either remove the eggs or the breeders, whatever works for you. If you want to remove the eggs to a hatching container you can use a razor blade or a clump of Java Moss(the eggs will adhere to the moss) to remove the eggs from the glass. Best of luck.

Mark

[catmandave]

To remove Cory eggs from the glass I began with a razor blade but later used a plastic credit card as it is wider and worked better, collected more eggs per swipe. I can see how corybreed's suggestion of using a clump of Java Moss would work just fine too.Great tip, I'm going to try that next time. Thanks!