PlanetCatfish.com

Hi folks,

This is my first post here, so please bear with me if I mess up with the photo links.

I started keeping Corys about a year ago, a troupe of three C. Paleatus (2xf, 1xm). They share a 60 litre tank with a few Amano Shrimp & a jungle of plants.

What little I know about Catfish is largely thanks to mining this (wonderful) site for information. It seems to have paid off as, not only are they all still alive but, since late August, have been spawning every other day. (They are in fact "at it" as I type).

C. Paleatus may not be the most exotic Cory, and the spawning procedure no more than "add water and stand clear", but they are beautiful wee creatures and their antics are a never ending source of amusement & fascination. So, I thought I'd (try to) share a few of the many pictures I've taken of them.

The spawnings usually start in the early morning - the male's opening gambit is to "tickle" the females on their foreheads with his whiskers.



If he gets any sort of reaction then lots of high speed chasing ensues. The male tends to "hover" in the current before darting after the object of his affections. The females tend to swim rapidly up and down the glass and make high speed circuits of the tank with the male in hot pursuit.





When in the "T" position, the female is usually faced head to the current.



I've observed the females deposit the eggs between their fins prior to the "T", during the "T", and after the "T". I've even seen them go through the entire pantomime with no eggs in evidence at all.




They seem to produce 3-5 eggs at a time. It is difficult to say how many eggs they produce per session as the females tend to eat them within minutes of placing them. (Never seen the male do this - only the females).
The tank glass (especially if it has been cleaned recently) and Vallisineria are the favoured egg placement sites. They infrequently use Java Fern but never the Ceratopteris, Java Moss, H. Polysperma or Cryptocorynes.




I only manage to rescue a tiny fraction of the eggs laid - of these, most prove to be fertile. The fish are sufficiently used to me that they carry on spawning even whilst I'm poking around in the tank scraping eggs off the glass. They are also quite unfazed by flash photography - though they do sometimes pause and shoot me a quizzical look as if wondering what on earth I'm up to.



In my experience, the eggs take ~150 hours (at 21 C) before hatching.
The eggs darken and, the developing fry is just about visible inside.



It took me a few attempts before I could get the fry to survive more than 24hours.Initially I tried a plastic tub with airstone floated on the parent's tank, but found that the fry all died within 24 hours of hatching.
I then tried the same tub outside of the tank with a bit more success - perhaps overheating due to the lighting was the problem.
The next hurdle seemed to be at the 7-9 day mark. I lost a lot of fry to (I believe) fungal infections - their fins & barbels did not develop properly with the result that they starved once they'd consumed their yolk sac.
Adding a few drops of Melafix with the daily water changes resolved this.

The next batch, I split 50-50 between the tub and a breeding net suspended in a mature 30 Litre planted shrimp tank. The fry in the breeding net grew at an astonishing rate compared to those in the tub, so I transferred all of the fry to the breeding net & have dispensed with the tub, other than for initial hatching of the eggs..

Last weekend I set up another 30 litre tank with a sponge filter which will be a dedicated Cory fry tank. It has been seeded with filter gloop from the other tanks and last night the first hatchlings from the most recent batch of eggs went in. The shrimps in the shrimp only tank thrive on a diet of filter gloop/leaf litter alone, so my hope is it will also prove a good food source for Cory fry (and avoid the maintenance overheads associated with e.g. Liquifry).

The eldest surviving fry are now about 4-5 weeks old, are starting to look like Cory's and seem to be doing reasonably well, I plan to transfer these older ones gradually to the new 30 litre tank once it has had a few more days to sort itself out.

This pic shows a newly hatched fry on the left with two older fry (~4 wk) in middle/right. The newly hatched fry are very pale, but darken over the first 24 hours or so.



Anyway, that's it. Thanks for reading, I hope there was something of use/interest there.

Very nice pictures ...you can be proud of those!

Extemely good photos. IWould suggest rewriting/expanding the text a bit, and submitting it as an article to the Shane's World section.

Excellent photography!

Congrats with your results and pics!!

Hi again,

Firstly, many thanks for all your kind comments.
However, I suspect I've still a long, long way to go before I make a living as a photographer.

The other thing I wanted to do was post a couple more pictures.. (this is what happens when you encourage me .
When I read back my first post, I wondered why the breeding net should work better for me than the tub, despite conventional wisdom appearing to favour the tub.

I think a large part of the answer is "Shrimp".
They squabble with each other for the right to clean the bottom of the breeding net and their Chelae are well adapted to fetching uneaten food particles through the mesh.
As a result, I can feed more and the shrimp will deal with some degree of excess.
The shrimp are also very partial to bio-film & fungus - the sorts of things which might promote finrot in fish fry.

The first photo shows one of the shrimp hard at work on the net:



This next is a crop from the first showing its Chelae in more detail:



Finally, some of the fry. (pictures taken this afternoon). The smaller of the two is now ~1 week old. (It is the pale, newly hatched one shown in the first post).



Finally, finally, I think this one is getting to a size where it might do better with more space:



So, that's all for now.
Enjoy what remains of the Weekend.

Fantastic stuff - I'm amazed they weren't bothered by you taking pictures. Thanks for sharing!

amazing pics!! my peppered cories could care less also if my face is pressed up against the glass watching them or not! they just get right on with their business.

Cool you got pics of it, espiecially the one with the eggs in her little fins!!! That's amazing!! And congrats on raising the fry!!!

My tank always has eggs all over everywhere but I have never seen any babies. I think the cories eat the eggs, or the MTS's do. I have even checked for babies in the HOB filter. I have no way to raise the fry but I am just curious if any would have maybe survived so I check the water buckets carefully on their tank cleaning day.

Mine do it 3-4 boys chasing one chubby girl all around for a long time, with short rests in between, well the female resting snd the boys all continually rubbing all over her, she finally picks one then another then another. I have 4 girls and 8 boys.

Awesome pics again!!

great pictures and awesome work. Nice to see them so photogenic =)

Wonderful pictures.... congratulations!

Would you care to share what you feed the young at different stages??

Hello again,

Once more, thanks for all your kind comments..

Sooo. The next exciting (?) instalment of "Captain Clueless Breeds Corys" begins...

"Executive Summary":
Losses: 0
Hatched: 1
incubating: 2 - (but they don't look right).
Spawns: 1 (partial W/C on Sunday = spawn on Monday)
Eggs Laid: Unknown (several "dots" visible on glass)
Eggs Collected: 0 (my only chance to collect eggs is at weekends. The parents eat them if I'm at work, but leave tell tale dots all over the glass)

The single hatchling was plonked as a "pathfinder" in to the newly set up 30litre fry tank mentioned in one of the previous posts.
He disappeared for a day, but I spotted him this evening "ploughing" the gloop - he has a good turn of speed on him, nice fins and a good colour.
So, it looks like the environment is not completely toxic & he's finding enough to eat.

The tank has little "critters" swimming in it, of which more below.

Would you care to share what you feed the young at different stages??

Hi CharacinKid:

Artificial foods:
I've been feeding a mix of Liquifry & Sera Micron for the most part.
The last few days I've been offering the larger ones a tiny corner of a King British Catfish Pellet.
They gum away at that during the day while I'm at work and, because it is fairly solid, it is easy to clean up any leftovers when I get home.
The Liquifry I use in *very* small quantities. The bottle quotes a dose by water volume whereas it seems more sensible to me to dose by the number of (small) fry.
The Sera Micron I pre soak in tank water for a few minutes & then skoosh it in with a pipette. I add a small amount of this several times a day. Enough to keep the fry scooting around for five or 10 minutes.

Live foods:
I have not tried BBS.
When I was doing the tub method, I was advised by someone that an infusoria made by allowing banana peel to "fester" in water for a few weeks would be less trouble and just as good. The small sample of fry on which I tried that out all went belly up. So, I didn't feel inclined to try again.
That said, I've seen this method described in too many places to imagine the problem is anything other than my own incompetence.

All the fry (bar the "pathfinder" mentioned above) are currently in a breeding net in a shrimp tank.
That tank is basically one giant infusoria culture.
The tank is planted, has a gravel over soil substrate and the fry are an insignificant additional "load" on it.
It's alive with all manner of pond life which the shrimp don't eat, or can't eat quickly enough.
I'm not particularly neurotic about such things, but I *really* scrub my hands after I've been near it

I don't know if my fry are smaller/bigger than would be expected or about right for their ages.
I guess the main thing is that my mortality rate has dropped from 100% to ~20% over the course of a few attempts - so, if they are growing at all that'll do me for now

The parents are fed on a mix of Hikari Micro Wafers (staple), Blood Worm (once or twice a week).
They are very enthusiastic about the Micro Wafers (and the worms obviously).

If I've maintained the tank filter or done significant plant pruning/replanting then I'll fast them for the day.
I think the parents also supplement their diet with "pond life", they inspect closely every leaf of every plant every day & I often see them getting quite animated with a plant suggesting they've just found a tasty snack.

Finally, for anyone who has "tuned in" expecting pretty pictures.. here is a (partially successful) portrait of "mama-pepper" - checking me out to see if I've got any blood worms. It's a bit more "artsy" than the previous pics, but I like it. Hope you do too.




That's all for now. If there seems to be any continuing interest, I'll post an update at the weekend when I've more time.

P.S. If you see me about to do something *really* dumb please tell me.

yes! plz keep us updated! and that's a great pic! all ur pics are! I can even pic ur babies nibbling on the catfish pellet!!

Good luck!!

My favorite photo is the close-up of the eggs in the ventral fin basket. There's nothing like witnessing this organized chaos for the first time, is there!
Amanda

My favorite photo is the close-up of the eggs in the ventral fin basket. There's nothing like witnessing this organized chaos for the first time, is there!

Hi Amanda,

I think that's my favourite picture as well.. it took more than a few attempts to get it.
If this was still the age of film cameras, these fish would have bankrupted me by now.

The spawnings are an amazing thing to watch. Pandemonium - I can't imagine ever tiring of it.
What's really bizarre is the way that she so proudly carries the eggs around looking for a place to put them, carefully sticks them to the glass then ... two minutes later, decides she's got the munchies and scoffs them.

Here's another pic (misbehaving Corys in lower left).
Not going to win any aquascaping contests, but the fish seem happy enough with their little puddle.



Yesterday was a *very* big day for the fry.
I'll post an update/more pics later, once I've done some typing, crammed some food down my neck etc.

Hello again folks,

OK. As promised, here is a progress update. (With loads of photos .

I have now transferred the two largest fry from the breeding net to their new "luxury" growing on tank.
It would have been much easier to transfer all of them in one go but... if I've learned one thing recently, it is: "Do not bet the farm".

Catching/separating the fish was a wee bit traumatic for all concerned, so I thought it best not to photograph that phase of the operation.
However, once acclimating safely in the tub and with a big airstone to hide under, we all soon calmed down enough for me to sneak a few pic's without it disturbing them. (IME shadows falling over them & bumps/knocks/movement frighten them but flash is fine)

First though, their new home.
The water is a bit Tea stained due to the Mopani wood.



"Beasties" Not sure what they are, but they move and the fish eat them.
This tank was seeded from the other tanks so there shouldn't be anything there that they have not already been exposed to.



"Pathfinder" Cory (mentioned in previous post) photographed on 5th Dec.
He would rest mainly in a neuk under the wood, leaving it to go on short foraging expeditions every half hour or so.
He was also very canny - I would have to sit quietly for a while before he'd move and give away his position.
Now that he has company, he has become much less cautious but still scarpers at the first sign of movement outside the tank.



According to my first post, there should be a few more, older "pathfinders". This one is the only one I've seen.
(Keep *proper* records in future is another lesson learned).
These earlier ones are missing, presumed dead. Maybe the tank just was not stable enough initially, or there was no food for the first few days after setup. (The "critter" population took a wee while to establish itself).



Acclimating the fry (There wasn't a huge difference between the chemistry of the two tanks, but "better safe than sorry" ).




Waiting..




Still waiting..



The world's most beautiful fish. Ever. ..
I'll stick my neck out and say she's a girl. (Based on the shape of her dorsal fin).




Are we there yet???..




Home and ... wet.
For scale, the gravel is approx 3.5mm (1/8") dia.




and again..




Reflecting on the day's events..




It is now a day after the move and, judging by their behaviour, I'd say the fry (when does one start calling them "juveniles" ?) are happy - overjoyed even, with their new home.

I won't feed the tank until they've put a visible dent in the pond life population -shouldn't take long if their current enthusiasm holds

Those remaining in the net, I will transfer later this week - if all still looks well.
I think I also need to tape a bit of black bin bag round the back/sides of the tank so they'll feel more secure.

Well, I think this little "Saga of how I bred my first fish" is nearly done.
I'll post a pic or two of the youngsters in a few weeks, to show how they develop.

I've also decided not to rescue any more eggs for the time being.
This is because, if all the fry that I currently have make it to maturity, I believe I'll have to rehome one or two, or buy more/bigger tanks. I could undoubtedly squeeze several more fish into the 60 Litre tank, but so many of the emergencies one sees in forums seem to have "just one more fish" as the root cause.
The other reason is that two of my Amano shrimp are heavily pregnant and I want to have another bash at breeding them (all three attempts so far have been dismal failures ).

Mike_Noren
IWould suggest rewriting/expanding the text a bit, and submitting it as an article to the Shane's World section.

Hi Mike..
I would be happy to do this if you still think it would be worth while. (and, possibly as importantly, if whoever vets/accepts such submissions thinks it would have any value?).
It'd definitely have to be pitched as a "noobs tale" rather than as any sort of guide to breeding fish. (I would think

Finally, any of my photos I'd be happy (delighted) to donate to the cat-elog if desired. C. Paleatus seems already to be very well covered though.

That's all for now, hope you've enjoyed seeing/hearing about my wee fishes.
They may be "common as mud" and "indestructible" (Hah!) but they're still something special.


Martin

Special indeed. I got 8 I took home from my hollyday in South america. Talking about special.

I do like the report. Perhaps it is not as new as the spawnig of a C145 (if this number already has been given) but it is certainly valuable

remarkable and thanks for sharing! I tink the first pic of the tank you have is very nice! More then a puddle!

That one fish certainly is beautiful!

I love the peppered cories, very cool fish! Your babies are adorable!! And your pic of "mama pepper" is adorable!!

Sincere thank you Martin.

Your reports couldn't have come at a better time. I started a new tank a few weeks ago and last week added 2 peppers, 2 albino, and 5 bronze cories. They are the only fish in a 2ft planted tank.

Well they caught me with my pants down didn't they and laid eggs after less than a week in the tank.
I mean its not even properly cycled yet with nitrites still at .25 although the nitrates are 5-10.
Not only that, I gathered as many eggs as I could and popped them in a brood net in the tank and blow me down, about 8 of them hatched!
Your idea of a special little tank is a good one, and I might tomorrow buy a little one and get it started.

It was the bronze cories which spawned and I'm not sure what sexes the 2 albinos and peppers are. Will have to have a closer look now won't I?

Not only that, I gathered as many eggs as I could and popped them in a brood net in the tank and blow me down, about 8 of them hatched!
Your idea of a special little tank is a good one, and I might tomorrow buy a little one and get it started.

Hi Brengun

Congratulations!
I'm glad if any of this has been useful. I don't think there's much there that I can claim as "my idea" though.
Also, it should go without saying that the half dozen fry I haven't (yet) managed to kill don't make me much of an authority..
(I guess if you can measure any nitrItes then frequent partial water changes might be a good plan.. but you probably know that).
Anyway, good luck!


Well, whilst I'm here, I may as well post a few more photos of the bairns (for anyone who is not yet sick of the sight of them ).

They love poking around in the leaf litter, I periodically fret that it might pose a health risk, but they are so fond of it I haven't had the heart to remove it. I think fish and humans probably have very different ideas about what is a "healthy environment".
The first week in the tank they showed no interest if I added any prepared foods - they were clearly much more interested in exterminating the "pond life".
Now there's not a "critter" to be seen and they come running as soon as food hits the water.


As before, the gravel is about 1/8" diameter, so I make her just under 1" total length.
I reckon another 1/4" and she'll be about the same size her parents were when I got them about a year ago.


Resting on the bogwood..


Anyway, that's all for now,
A happy Christmas to all PC readers

Martin

Hi.

I am new here.

Used to be a amateur aquarium hobbyst in the early 80's, as a teenager. At that time, as far as I remember, breading Corys in tanks was still unprescedented (I might be wrong, as I was just a kid then and there was no internet to let us know everything that was going on everywhere).

However, my studies, then work etc. kept me away from acquariums ever since.

Anyway, now, at 36 years old, I am getting back to business, just putting together a new tank.

I have been reading this write up since day 1. I was cheering for your success and am glad you made it. In fact, your endeavour was one of the things that stimulated me in getting back into fish tanks.

Be proud of you accomplishment and keep up the good work!

Congrats!

Alex

This is an amazing thing to observe, from start to finish. I'll never forget the first time I saw an embryo rolling around inside the egg. About 15 minutes later, the eggs started hatching like popcorn. Enjoy every minute of this!
Amanda

Great pics! I have two peppers who are doing this exact thing right now and have been 24/7 for a few days. Weird thing is I thought the darker one was the male with dark dorsal fin and spots and my lighter, stocky one was the female but the lighter one appears to be the one doing all the hovering and chasing.

Hello again,

Hi.

I am new here.

Used to be a amateur aquarium hobbyst in the early 80's, as a teenager. At that time, as far as I remember, breading Corys in tanks was still unprescedented (I might be wrong, as I was just a kid then and there was no internet to let us know everything that was going on everywhere).

However, my studies, then work etc. kept me away from acquariums ever since.

Anyway, now, at 36 years old, I am getting back to business, just putting together a new tank.

I have been reading this write up since day 1. I was cheering for your success and am glad you made it. In fact, your endeavour was one of the things that stimulated me in getting back into fish tanks.

Be proud of you accomplishment and keep up the good work!

Congrats!

Alex

Thanks Alex,

I don't know about unprecedented, but I'm sure back then it was a less common/more flukey event unless one had someone to learn from.
If there'd only been an Internet when I was a lad, one or two goldfish might have lived much happier (& longer) lives... I cringe to think about them now..

According to this article http://www.scotcat.com/factsheets/c_paleatus.htm C. Paleatus was first captive bred in 1878 (!)
A "cartoon" now playing in my head, imagines Charles Darwin/H.M.S. Beagle leaving S. America with one or two slightly annoyed looking Peppers on board, and arriving back at Falmouth with every square foot of deck space covered in barrels teeming with juveniles..
That's not how it happened obviously but, given the way they carry on, it somehow wouldn't surprise me if it was

Anyway, good luck with your new tank! I shall look forward to reading about it.

Great pics! I have two peppers who are doing this exact thing right now and have been 24/7 for a few days. Weird thing is I thought the darker one was the male with dark dorsal fin and spots and my lighter, stocky one was the female but the lighter one appears to be the one doing all the hovering and chasing.

If it is a female and she is smaller, she's maybe just younger than the male?
The owner of my LFS told me that customers invariably go for the biggest specimens when buying a group.
As a result, males may be descriminated against until they are older & have grown a bit.

(My) females, if they are in condition to spawn, have a bit of a pot belly.
They don't seem to get absurdly fat, like you see in pictures of other cory species, nor do they produce a bazillion eggs in one go.
You can clearly see the "pot" in this picture.
Her expression suggests ... No, no.. best not to contemplate what the male is up to down there.



and here she is again, making eyes at the camera.




The other thing that seems to distinguish (my) females is that they have a higher/more prominent forehead than the male.
You can see it clearly in some of the photos on page 1.

As well as the physical differences, I've seen behavioural ones.
(My) male tends to spend much of his "spare" time resting slightly apart from the females, whereas the females always stick close to one another.
At first I worried about this, thinking the male might be a different species, or ill, or...
Once they started to spawn, it suddenly became clear - he's a male, of course he needs his pipe and slippers time


So, progress update...

Here are a couple of pics from 6th Jan. I haven't had time to do much since then due to work.
They've grown very slightly since the late December photos (if measured using my patented, super accurate, "count the pebbles" method).
It may just be "parental pride" but I think the offspring are better specimens than either of their parents.
They have more contrast-y markings and their fins have more patterning on them.






Sadly, one of the juveniles died between Christmas/New Year.
There were no physical symptoms or early warning - (s)he just "stopped".
At the same time, another one went very pale.
I wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but water quality is always a good bet.
So, I put them on "starvation" rations, did some hefty water changes/vacuuming &, pretty much overnight, the pale one coloured up again & everyone has been fine since.

I think because I was at home more often over the Christmas break, I (unconsciously) slipped into overfeeding them.
Really annoying, I should know better by now. (I do know better), but you live and learn.
Since then, I've been hyper-cautious about how much I feed them - to the point that when I come in from work now the "bairns" pretty much line up along the glass and glower at me until I give them their supper.

On a brighter note, the death gave me an excuse to collect a couple more eggs from the parents and stick those in the tank.
The assumption was that from two, one of them might hatch. Needless to say they both did.
These fry are now some two weeks old, well formed and active. However, they are very small for their age.
As the juveniles have long since wiped out any (visible) pond life and I'm not exactly flooding the tank with food, these fry are having to subsist on whatever they can find. They lurk under the bog-wood mainly, but do come out to forage - the juveniles show an unhealthy interest in them, I suspect the fry might end up as "lunch" if they weren't so cautious/speedy.

The next, probably final, phase of this saga will be to transfer the juveniles back to the parents' tank.
I've been giving that some thought recently and I think I'll do it one fish at a time over a few weeks.
On the one hand, I want to wait until the juveniles are big enough to do well in the parents tank (if I judge that wrong, getting them back out again will be impossible due to all the cover). On the other hand, transferring them whilst they are small means less of a jolt to the filter. (it is only a 60 litre/15 usg tank)
Maybe I'm being over cautious, but I'd be really peeved were I to wipe out 4 or 5 months work when within sight of the "finishing line".

Anyway, that's about all for now.. thanks for reading,

Check back in about a month.. if you want to see what happens

Martin

Hello again,

Well, it's been a busy old day on the "fishfarm" today...

Yesterday evening, I transferred the first of the juveniles to the parents tank. That all went uneventfully and the little fella (from his behaviour I think it's probably a male) is acting like a happy wee fish, playing follow my leader with the adults & so on.

I came perilously close to moving all of the juveniles in one go, but this evening I'm very glad that I didn't. I noticed the adult male flicking a couple of times and looking generally irritable this afternoon. A water test showed ammonia somewhere around 0.25-0.5 ppm So, water change time.
I was quite surprised that adding one comparatively tiny fish should make an appreciable dent in the ecology of the tank.
Clearly it has, so I guess I'll need to do more changes over the next few days to keep the levels down whilst things catch up.

Anyway, pictures

Mother with Child



The next picture clearly shows the differences in colouration between the adults and the offspring that I mentioned in the last post.
It could be that this is due to the (higher) lighting in the tank. The adults are very well camouflaged against the gravel so maybe they have the ability to modify their colouration. It'll be interesting to see if junior changes colour over time.



Whilst doing some cleaning/pruning last weekend, I lifted up the lump of bogwood in the background of the photo above.
What do you suppose went scattering in all directions? Yup. Cory fry!
I've no idea how many there are, or how old they are, or how they managed to survive but, I managed to spot one in the open this afternoon whilst I had the camera out. As ever, the gravel gives the scale.



Looks like I'm going to have to rehome some fish in the not too distant future..

That's all for now,
Martin