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as i was watching my cories this morning swimming around the bottom of the tank at feeding time i noticed that they seem to swim around looking for food pretty randomly. sometimes one would stop and swim away just centimeters from a shrimp pellet. i've noticed the same behavior with my fry. can cories smell? if they can smell, why is their search for food so random?

-Liz

Corys, like other catfishes, don't so much smell the water as they taste it (with most of the taste buds concentrated in the head and barbels). I suspect that armored catfishes aren't so good at tasting because the covering of bony plates reduces the number of taste buds available. Certainly, I have noticed that naked-skinned catfishes are much better at finding food.
Catfishes also search for food by following a concentration gradient of taste molecules, and water currents in the tank will also play a part. Studies have also shown that substances like detergents can seriously degrade the tasting ability of catfishes.

Corydorus definitely able to smell quite good. Whenever I drop food tablets, they will swim out with generally direction towards the source.

But I did notice a few Cory species do better than the rest. And able to get to the food source with just a few quick sniffs across the tank.

I also observed they really really have very poor vision. The tablet sometime got carried away by large Yamano shrimps. And this poors guys still sniffing or sucking on the leftover !