corydoras habrosus group size

[bigamefish]

I was wondering what an ideal group size of corydoras habrosus would be for a five gallon tank with its ony other tank mate being a

Bunocephalus coracoideus

[Coriequest]

Not to barage you with questions but ...How big is your filtration? Is it a well planted tank? How often will you vacuum the bottom and do water changes? I would estimate that a female with three males would be fine. They like bigger groups but you don't want to over populate a small tank like that. Some people successfully manage more but that's with lots of filtration, plants and attention!

[bigamefish]

I do water changes every Friday. I will buy some plants at the time of the purchase of the fish! I have a tetra whisper filter.

[Coriequest]

Sorry to confuse you, you don't have to have plants for habrosus, the questions were just to see if plants were helping with water quality. You can have some low tech plants like some java fern, java moss, guppy grass if you want/like. In my experience even a small tank does better with lots of filtration. I don't know how much you already know about planted tanks, substrate and keeping fish healthy. Im fairly new to planted tanks and many problems have made me more knowledgable but I'm not an expert. So no insult intended, just make sure your substrate isn't sharp and that you vac the bottom when you change water, for a small tank a 30% change twice a week would prob be good. They seem to like cholla wood, manzi and some indian Almond leaf or hardwood leaf litter. Test your water too...for ammonia, nitrites and PH about every three days and more if you have fish looking distressed for any reason. Try to match temp in the tank when you add new water. Use a good dechlorinator like Prime. In a small tank you will prob have more water quality issues so need to stay actively engaged with it. Good luck!

[bigamefish]

hello coryquest thanks for the advice! but a pair of african cichlids spawned and now the tank in question has been occupied by the female and soon enough her fry! looks like my plans will have to wait!

[LughLamfada]

Tetra Whisper filters are absolutely terrible because they suffer from a major design flaw. They use mechanical and carbon filtration by means of a "bio-bag," which is basically a mechanical scrubber bag with some activated carbon inside. The only problem is that a day or two after installing the new bio-bag, the activated carbon drops to the bottom of the pouch and the water no longer passes through it. You can remedy this by slicing the very top of the pouch open and stuffing more carbon in there, but it gets to be a hassle after a while.