Panda and melini cories

[Akasha]

Hi, I have 4 adult panda cories and a baby panda (found hiding among the plants recently) but yesterday I got myself 3 melini cories but on adding to the tank one of the new melini's went straight to an adult female panda and showed signs of inviting spawning. I have tried researching if these two can interbreed but I can't find anything to confirm or deny this.

Can anyone tell me if it is possible for these two to interbreed?

Many thanks

[Karsten S.]

Hi,

I don't know if this has already happened with exactly this combination but C. panda is one of the species that is most susceptible to cross-breeding; there are already lots of examples with C. panda.
I assume that is quite possible that they cross-breed.
Having larger groups of both species helps as they usually prefer the males of the same species but you never know for sure...

Cheers,

[Akasha]

okay thanks. The melini's are hanging out with the panda's mostly - they seem scared of my larger peppered and bronze's but I thought that might be a size thing as these melini's are very young and panda cories stay much smaller than peppered/bronze.

I'll keep an eye on them and if they do indeed cross breed I'll post and confirm it for others to know about. I don't really mind whether they interbreed or not, I was mostly just interested to know why one was offering itself to a female of another species!

Thanks

[rmc]

I kept somewhat large groups (7 C.melini and 8 C.panda) together for a while to grow out. I did not witness any spawning but when I pulled the C.panda out to put them in a separate tank to spawn I did find one baby C.panda. As far as I can tell there is no sign of any C.melini genes in this fish, but I will not try to spawn it - just in case. Once separated both groups began spawning almost immediately.

[Akasha]

okay, so it is possible for these to cross-breed. My panda's are two definite females, one definite male - the other I'm not certain of but I'm leaning toward male also. The new baby panda that was born in the tank is also looking to be male.
As for the melini's - they're too young to sex just yet but going by the first reactions when adding to my tank one is male for sure. I am hoping the other two are female and that they now spawn in their own group.

Would there be any implications to potential cross breeding? such as poor health or deformity? Sorry for my ignorance in these matters.

[rmc]

Hybridization can lead to sterile offspring(they may not be able to successfully mate). I don't know of any other issues, but there may be some.
The real problem is that there is already such vast and amazing diversity in the Corydoras found in nature that creating tank raised hybrids creates further confusion to an already confusing group. Identifying sp. is difficult enough as it is without throwing crosses into the mix. Thankfully I don't think there are a lot of people successfully hybridizing Corys in large numbers, right now at least.
In a large community tank it would be unlikely that you could produce enough hybrids to seriously impact the hobby, but in my opinion it would be best to separate them out if you are trying to breed them. C.panda can be easily spawned in a 30L tank, so why not set them up for a little while to try? That way you could guarantee that the offspring are all C.panda.
If you do continue to keep them together I would just make sure that none of the offspring produced leave your tanks, that way at least you would not be spreading potential hybrids to others in the hobby.

[Akasha]

hi and thanks for the reply.

I spoke to my lfs about them. Currently I have another baby panda that has shown up - this will be 2 now that have been hatched in the community tank and managed to avoid being eaten. This now brings my panda stock to 6 which is enough for me.
I have no intention of 'polluting' the trade with hybrid cories and I've agreed with the lfs that if any new panda's show up in the next few weeks I will know they are full panda (the melini are too young to spawn just yet) and I will pass them on to them to sell. After that time there may be a chance of cross breeds I think and so if I have surplus the lfs will still take them from me but they will put them into their display tank instead of for sale.
I already have 8 peppered cories, 5 bronze, the 6 panda's and now the 3 melini. My tank is 4ft and keeping too many more is going make them cramped up.
Had I of known that the panda's and melini could cross breed I wouldn't have bought the melini and if I had more than one tank I would seperate them now to avoid the possibility but that's not possible currently.

Thanks to all for the info