Can I keep Corydoras pygmaeus and habrosus together

[MarlonnekeW]

Hi everybody,

This weekend I want to start building a small shelving unit for my aquariums that consist of 3 aquariums of app. 80 liter/22 gallons. At the moment I have a group of (eight) Corydoras pygmaeus and a group of (eight) Corydoras habrosus, both in a separate aquarium. The last couple of months my pygmaeus have been breeding and I hope that my habrosus will too, once they are old enough.

One of my current aquariums (the pygmaeus tank) will be replaced by one of the new ones. My original plan was to put it on one of the shelves, start up the other two aquariums, move the fish into their new home after a few weeks and then replace this aquarium. Because I need some room behind and above the aquarium to open the cover and there's not a lot of room on the shelve, so this will be very tricky.
Therefore I'm currently exploring two other options. The first one is to use the old filter and put the fish in their new home right away. I'm not sure if this would be a good idea, because I want to use new substrate and decoration such as plants, because I want to try to have a snail free aquarium (I have way too many right now), so I'll have a lot less bacteria in the new aquarium. The other option is to move my pygmaeus in with the habrosus for a few weeks.

Therefore my question: Is it possible to keep Corydoras pygmaeus with Corydoras habrosus or would I be risking interbreeding between the two species?

[pleconut]

I can offer you tips re the snails, if it's an option for you. When i moved my plecos and they're very valuable to me. I didnt want pest snails using up precious resources that could jeopardise the plecos- if it got really out of control. I gradually matured filters in a very mature but same sized snail free tank i had fish in alongside the existing filters, i dont know if you have a snail free tank, at the same time in the snail free i removed the fish a few times to avoid stressing them too much, a water change, after i changed some of the gravel. On the moving day i removed water from the plecos tank through a very fine net to transer to the new tank. The old filters should be cleaned and left to dry out for two weeks or so and replace the media. They can then be matured in alongside the mature filters in the new snail free tank. Then transferred once more, obviously it goes without saying to ensure no health problems are around, one way is not adding fish. I did rehome the fish in the snail free tank. I didnt have a snail free tank to put them in, by now i was fed up with snails, although I didn't want to. I needed to downsize anyway. As a result the plecos are now doing really well as all my fishkeeping efforts are focussed entirely on them! It was a pain in the neck but at least the plecos are happy. Its not an ideal arrangement. But for me it dealt with the problem. I hope you get good tips re the cories.

[MarlonnekeW]

Thanks for the tips!
It surely will be a challenge to keep my aquarium snail free. I have a small shrimp tank, which I've cleaned completely, bought a new filter, substrate, wood and plants and still I see a pond snail now and then.
In a way they are very useful, but I don't trust them when it comes to eating cory-eggs. At the moment my pygmaeus are in an aquarium with a only a few shrimps (and a lot of snails). I see them spawn, but I can't find any baby fish. Last week I discovered an egg on the glass (usually the eggs are in the plants) so just to be sure, I've put it in a netbreeder. Yesterday the egg hatched. So the eggs are fertile. Someone is probably eating them and since the shrimps are not suppose to eat eggs, I can only blame the snails.

Edit: Today I've discovered planaria in my pygmaeus breeding tank, so this could also be the reason why I haven't seen any babies yet. I decided to move the pygmaeus and the shrimps in with the habrosus and clear out the aquarium. While I was doing so, I discovered around 20 very small cory's. They were all the same size and must be one of two days old.

[Coursair]

My habrosus and pygmaeus typically hang out in different areas. My habrosus are more "normal" Cories sitting on the bottom as well as on leaves. My pygmaeus are often midwater or on leaves. They get along great, never seen any crossbreeding behavior with mine.

[Marine590622]

If you put a net barrier between the two groups the spawning of one group can trigger the spawning of the other.

[VelcroWY]

I have not heard of pygmy corys and hasbrosus interbreeding. I currently have some pygmy corys in a tank with some aspidoras. Like a post above said, the pygmy corys tend to be more mid-water than most corys, so there doesn't seem to be a problem.

[shrimpkeeper222]

Will Pygmy Corys(C.Pygmaeus) and Dwarf Corys(C.Hastatus) interbreed?

[MarlonnekeW]

Thanks for the info. My pygmaeus and habrosus have been living together now for a few weeks and they get along fine. They sort of ignore each other and don't get together to form one big group. When you have them together under the same conditions, you can really see the differences between the two species. The habrosus are more active and a lot less shy. I was hoping that being in an aquarium with another cory-species would make the pygmaeus less shy, but that's not the case (unfortunately).

I do have another question relating to the pygmaeus. I was talking to another cory breeder and he told me he had problems with a few of his groups, because the fish were too closely related (inbreeding). I bought my original group for three different stores and they were very successful as a breeding group. Because I had so many offspring and not enough room to raise them, I decided to move my pygmaeus to my community tank with other fish, who would control the breeding. When I added a new tetra species to the tank, my fish got ill and I also lost a big part of my original pygmaeus group, so my group now consist of a few of the parents and a number of their offspring. Later on, I've tried breeding them again, but that has been a lot less successful (so far I was able to raise only two baby pygmaeus). They spawn regularly but somehow the offspring doesn't survive. Could this be caused by inbreeding?

[Tetranerd]

I keep both together in my breeding colony. No problems. And don't think they will interbreed.

And even if you purchased from three different stores, the stores could possibly be using the same wholesaler. So might all come from same stock.

[MarlonnekeW]

Of course, there's still a chance that they come form the same wholesaler, but in my opinion this way the chance that they are closely related is smaller than why you buy them all together from the same store.