Coryodoras Hastatus breeding

[Lars Jamne]

Some weeks ago I started noticing a few eggs here and there in my 150l C. hastatus tank after I put them alone in this tank with only a few Orange Sakurashrimps.... I only had seven wild caught individuals, which never got any any surving eggs since they temporarily shared a tank with C. Delphax.

I am feeding the inhabitants with shrimp food, whiteworms, micro worms, live daphnia, and other small live food and once or twice a week they get a TabiMin or some other dried food. But in general it's live food all the way and it seems to work very well, so far at least.

Here's a photo of the first egg I noticed


Corydoras Hastatus fry at 3mm


Corydoras Hastatus fry at 7mm


Corydoras Hastatus fry at ca 12mm


And here's one searching for some nice microworms...

[Coriequest]

Super! Without others eating the eggs and fry and ideal water conditions they seem to be quite prolific little cats! Congratulations!

[Lars Jamne]

Yeah, keeping them away from eggeaters and preferably alone with small shrimps is probably the way to go.

I keep them in 24-25 degreess and the ph varies from 6.8 to 7.4. 

The good things is that now it's possible to get these spread around the country. It's almost impossible to get hold of C. Hastatus in Norway nowadays.

[apistomaster]

I raised several hundreds of Corydoras hastatus over several years until I needed the tank for a pleco breeding project.
My best friend is keeping the breeding colony going so we never have to hope we can find them again. I always kept common Cherry Shrimp in the colony breeding set up without any problems. However apparently not all little shrimp are created equal. He tried keeping common Tiger Shrimp with them and production fell precipitously.
Now that these shrimp have been removed the C. hastatus population has rebounded.
I have raised a variety of Corydoras spp but C. hastatus remains my personal favorite.
I find their mimicry of many nondescript Tetras fascinating.
Even when you know what they are, at a glance, they appear for all the world to be some kind of Tetra.
Best of success to you.
I mainly fed them chilled newly hatched brine shrimp. The lethargic nauplii quickly settle on and near the bottom where these catfish eat and the same food feeds all fry to breeders. I would also give them live black worms whenever I had them. Sometimes I would have as many as 200 including larvae, fry and breeders all in one US 20 gal long. When I was selling them they were going out at about the same rate they were being replaced. This allowed me to simply breed and sell a couple hundred every year I maintained the colony.
I have plecos and wild type Blue Discus breeding so I don't have the time and space to breed them anymore. I'm lucky to have a friend who is keeping them going.

[Lars Jamne]

Many thanks for your input Apistomaster. I think I'm in the right track now and each day now new eggs are discovered and the oldest of them have already got the coloring as the adults. 

I will rig up a few 75l tanks at our breeding facility and see if I can get them to continue the breeding there during the winter, although the ph is a little higher just above 7. It is a far too beautiful corydoras to not keep breeding and I wish to build of some real good and big groups. And as you mentioned you had kept up towards 200 in a 75l tank there is a big potential here.

http://jamne.com/akvariefoto/Corydoras_hastatus_007.jpg