Raising Albino/Pepper Cory Fry

[CorydoraCat]

I read through the "raising fry" thread, and had a couple more questions.

I successfully hatched approx. 30 cory eggs! They hatched some time late last night.
I caught my big albino female carrying them around, and after she laid them I moved them to their own small tank. The tank is about 1 gallon, maybe a little more, and is completely bare. I have a filter installed with a sponge cartridge and mesh over the intake. I used a few drops of methylene blue to help prevent fungus on the eggs. They appear to have all hatched, and went crazy over some Nutrafin fry food this morning. My questions are:

- I have a carbon cartridge ready for the filter, can it go in right away? Or should the methylene blue concentration be reduced more slowly first? Can decreasing the concentration too fast cause any problems?
- When replacing removed water, can I use water taken from my larger established tank? Or is newly treated tap water better for them?
- I've read brine shrimp are a good food for the fry. Can frozen brine be fed? (Thawed first)
- There currently isn't a heater in there. The room is fairly warm. Should I install a heater for them? Or are they okay for now? I've had corys in non-heated tanks in that room before with no problems. Those same corys are now in a larger heated tank, but were in an unheated tank for almost a year before I moved them over.

Thanks! :]
Really excited about this! I hope they make it!

Edit: Those egg clutches apparently had a lot more eggs than I thought, because there's 59 fry. Wow!
I didn't think I had that many eggs! I didn't pull all of them out of the main tank either. Just two of the clusters.

[bekateen]

Hi CorydoraCat,

Congratulations on your new "children." I can't address all of your questions, but I can share my experiences that address two of them:

1. As for brine shrimp, obviously adult brine shrimp are way too large. But I have fed my albino cory fry frozen baby brine shrimp successfully. That said, I've never used frozen baby brine shrimp with cory fry that have just hatched - the corys may be too small still (I don't know, I'm just guessing), so I usually introduce the brine shrimp a little later. My preferred first food is a mix of regular adult dry foods (flakes, pellets, freeze-dried worms) which I pulverize to an extremely fine dust, so fine that it feels smooth if rubbed between your fingers. When feeding, take a pinch of this dust, mix it with a little water to get it soaked, and then add it to the tank; it will slowly sink to the bottom where the fry will find it.
2. As for the heater, I hatch and raise albino cory and trilineatus cory fry in a 2.5 gallon tank. For the first year, I raised fry without a heater (the tank is in my kitchen, and the house is heated to than 68 degr F in day and 60 degr F at night). The albino fry seemed to do okay, but the trilineatus fry didn't do as well. But more recently I've started using a small heater, the kind made for a betta tank, which is not temperature-adjustable. This raises the temp into the 70's and the fish also seem to do fine. My suspicion is that if your house is warm enough, you can still succeed without the heater, but the heater will accelerate their growth.

Good luck,
Eric

[CorydoraCat]

Thanks!

a. They're only a few mm. Really tiny! I'll stick with the fry food I bought. All my other fish get a mix of different foods, so I could grind some of those down to try. I have bloodworms, shrimp pellets, veggie pellets, two different flakes, algae wafers, frozen mixed seafood and veggie cubes, and a bit of daphnia. Maybe I'll try some of those!

b. The house is usually kept around 70F, sometimes a little more or less. That room tends to stay warmer than the rest of the house though. I had the bronze and pepper corys without a heater in that room. They're in the big tank with a heater now. They seemed just fine both ways. Maybe I'll try going without for now. I do have a spare heater, but the tank is already really small without a heater taking up space. I have a 10gallon I can move them to later when they (hopefully) get a bit bigger. I might hold the heater till then. Unless the temperature fluctuates...

[bekateen]

If you do choose to get a mini heater, here are two products that I've used and I like (both are about $10-$20 USD):

http://www.amazon.com/Hydor-7-5w-Heater ... 0079G74TI/

http://www.amazon.com/Marineland-Aquari ... B00BMEKGHK

Both are small, unbreakable, and (so far) reliable in my experience. They aren't adjustable, so you can't set the temperature. Personally, I have a slight preference for the Marineland product, because it has a built-in thermostat set to 78 degr F. As far as I can tell, the Hydor product does not have the thermostat; it simply elevates water temperature a few degrees higher than whatever temp unheated water would be - so theoretically the Hydor could overheat your tank on a hot day.

By the way, I'm giving a plug to supporting PlanetCatfish here: In previous posts, it's been said that if you buy things through Amazon.com, part of the price comes back to support PlanetCatfish, IF you buy the product using the link from this site.

Here is the page that describes this: http://www.planetcatfish.com/general/ge ... cle_id=386

@Jools, can you chime in on this and refresh us as to how to use this link to order through Amazon?

Thanks, Eric

[CorydoraCat]

I'll keep it in mind!
The one I have is a little overkill, but might work if I need it. Their water's about 73-74F right now without the heater.

They ate some more, and there's even more of them. More hatched. I thought all the eggs had hatched, but apparently there were still some waiting to come out. Ended up putting the carbon in, and did a water change, replaced with water from my established tank.

Edit: Undercounted. There's over 60. Can eggs have twins...? There's so many, but the clutches weren't that big.

Either way, we're at 4-5 days since hatching, and they're doing pretty good. 5 or 6 ended up dieing. But the rest are going strong!