PlanetCatfish.com

Hey,
I just found Planet Catfish after buying a bronze cory, I think I'm in love! After reading up on the little guys I went out and bought him some friends. Do you have any advice for a new cory owner. What kind of live food can I feed them? I want to give them a variety of foods for a diet. Also does anyone know of any small fresh water fish that will eat snails (Having trouble getting rid of the pests).
Thanks Alot,
MissB

Welcome aboard.
If you're into Corydoras, check out Ian's website.
As for snail-eating fish, there are catfish that will do that. Unfortunately, they are not small.

Welcome to fish and catfish, Miss B. I hope you have a lot of fun with your bronze cories.

As for small freshwater fish that eat snails, they DO exist but unfortunately are geneally difficult to find. Botia striata is a small and peaceful loach, that is very effective against most snails. It is available intermittently and would make a good companion for your bronze cories.

As Silurus notes, there are plenty of snail-eating catfish, but they start at about 8 cm (3"), which is a bit larger than your Cory.

Dinyar

For your Snail problem Botia Striata's are good also Botia Sidthimunki are the smallest Botia Loach that will eat snails. 3 inches Max size and are great to watch. The least Nocturnal loach outthere!! I have Bronze Cory's and just after 3 months of keeping them they had Egg's. Great Cat's.


Graeme.

Silurus wrote:Welcome aboard.
If you're into Corydoras, check out Ian's website.
As for snail-eating fish, there are catfish that will do that. Unfortunately, they are not small.

I have a small website dedicated to Corys as well.
http://www.corydorasworld.com

hi peeps,

heheh ... myabe I haven't ventured into world of loaches, but I'm pleasantly surprised to see here that these two loaches (dwarf loach & zebra loach) would eat snails!


Graeme, Dinyar,
so these little fellas are ok with cories? recently I have a snail infestation, hate crushing them with my hands, heheh ... maybe I can look to loaches now. Would appreciate if you could share your experience about loaches + cories in the same tank!

Thanks a lot!

cheers
phil

I've kept both loaches and Cory's for years in the same tank too.
There's loaches and loaches; and even in the genus "Botia"; there's a wide range in behaviour!
And of course, some Cory's are fragile, while most are fairly though, as small catfishes go.

For really up-to-date loaches info: http://www.loaches.com

And as far as snail-eaters:
The best two snaildestroyers are
-Botia macracantha (Clownloach): the two drawbacks of this species are it's EXTREMELY sensitivity to white spot (itch, ick or ichthyophtirius) and its' sheer size; adults can reach a foot in length, given enough space. It IS however THE most colorful loach, and very social and peaceful.
-Botia sidthimunki (Dwarfloach): this is an endangered species in the wild; fortunately there are more and more captive breds available. Like the Clown, it's highly social, diurnal and sensitive to white spot. Most varieties grow to 5 cm or so, but a recent batch of Thai-sidthi's are bigger than 10 cm....
These two Botia's even eradicate the Malaysian Burrowing Snail.

Other good snaileaters, with peaceful and social behaviour are B dario (Queen Loach), B striata (Zebra loach), B rostrata (syn B geto), B almorhae (syn B lohachata, the Yo-Yo Loach), and Botia eos (Sun loach). They can be a bit picky, and sometimes don't want to eat the Burrowing snail. Other snails are toast, however!

Botia morleti (syn B horae), the Skunk-botia is also good at snailcontrol; this one however, has been known to get aggressive sometimes, and if you have a 'bad' one, it's able to kill co-inhabitants. For Botia modesta (Orange finned Loach) it's the same, although usually it's more peaceful.

The bigger longsnouted Botia's, like Botia hymenophysa (Tigerloach) should be avoided: the Tiger is as good as its' namesake, and pound for pound one of the nastiest fish in Asia. It gets fairly big too. Excelent snailkiller, but usually kills more than just snails....

ALL peaceful Loaches are socia and should be kept in small groups; for the Dwarf it's even better to keep a true shoal (>7 fish).
Other loaches can be fun to keep, but they rarely eat snails; the Cobitis, Nemacheilus, Noemacheilus, Pangio (Kuhli-loaches) and Acanthopsis (Horsehead loach) loaches are pretty, peaceful fish;usually, but they won't kill snails.

What about some kind of dorad??

Dorads (or at least snail-eating ones) would be too big for the average tank.

how big is the tank with the snail problem??? I think that certain loris could help...depending on the room in the tank and how big the snails are...but if were talking about the little bastard snails that are about the size of a pencil eraser (rubber) than, again depending on the room in the tank i have had some cichlids that would eat them before there shells started to develop...anyway smoosh smoosh smoosh and let the corpses fall victim to scouring cories until ou figure out a long term fix...there is always snailacide (did I say that)

ben

great stuff!

SG. thanks a lot especially. yeah. been to loaches.com to check it out when I saw this thread earlier. heheh.

dwarf loach sounds absolutely great! that is, if I can find any. was eyeing that when I did some research earlier. but seems like they are a protected sp now. will check out the rest of the loaches that you mentioned. e.g. queen, b geto etc.

cheers!
phil

I would say: go for the clown loach! They are the sweetest. . and they make clicking sounds, when they eat. . and they´re very effective as snail eaters - however they will also eat your plants, if you don´t give them "green food"