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Six Months ago, Mike and Spike (Melanie Cory Cats) had 8 babies. Two of them lived (Tike and Sike). They are currently housed in a 90 gallon planted tank. All four of them are doing great.

Now my question: Tike still looks like a baby. His brother (or sister) is about 2 1/2 times his size. Tike gets plenty of food and is very active. About 2 months ago, I purchased 2 panda cory babies for my daughter's tank. They are now bigger than Tike.

Why isn't he growing? He looks adorable but I'm wondering if he is a dwarf?

Early feeding sounds like a likely cause for permanent stunting... It's often hard to understand exactly what causes one individual in a brood to have these problems. It could be some heredatary genetic defect too, since the parents are most likely siblings, or cousins at best (unless you got them from different places at different times - and even then it's far from guaranteed that they are unrelated).

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Mats

I'm not too sure what you mean by "early feeding" but when they were fry, I fed them dry fry food, frozen daphnia and bloodworms as they got a little older.

I did get the parents at the same place but at different times; about 5 months apart.

Yup, I meant when they first started eating. And it's not so much the type of food, but if this particular fish got sufficient food.

5 months apart makes it more likely that the parent's aren't quite as closely related - but no guarantees - most breeders have several sets of breeding groups, and yours may come from the same or different parents - impossible to say.

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Mats

Actually, Tike was always the first one out to eat. Sike was really shy and it took him a little longer to come out to eat.

Well, we'll see what happens. He's healthy and active so let's hope he lives a nice long life.

I've a couple of stunted Cory's, now about 3 years old or so. I'm quite certain it was from less than ideal conditions, in their first few weeks. When I was still figuring things out, under feeding certainly impeded normal development.

Mats has also mentioned in the past, that high Nitrite levels during this early development stage may have similar effect on growth.

But genetics is a funny game. These guys are all from the same batch. The Fry on the left are the normal size. On the right I have both under-developed and, over-developed.

Well, this was my first batch and so far my only batch. I hope they breed again as it was a lot of fun watching them grow up.

I don't know what I would differently but I certainly would like another shot at it.