breeding corys

[Luis.Ventura]

I deleted my post in the L´s zone and moved here whit a new one, thot it would be better to make it here.

I have a planted tank where i keep C. pigmaeus, C. Stebai, Farlowela Acus and a panaque nigrolineatus (L191 i think) both corys are cept in shoal but i rarely see any eggs or wiglers running around and i never had any coming to adulthod.
I have taken off the Farlowela and panaque wishing that at least both corys breed naturaly whitout having to take them off the tank to have a sucessfull breed.
1- I was thinking in adding a shoal of Otocinclus to cleaing porpose and to give some more movement to the tank, but would they eat corys eggs?
2- I am in doubth if each cory would eat eachother eggs or wiglers, are they safe or should i separate them?
3- I have a comunity of red cherry in that tank and i always heard that RC would eat bad eggs and leave (cleane even) the good ones, is this true or only fairytail story?
4- I have melanoides to clean my dead leaves sturb my soil so that i don´t have bad roots and black sand, i never seen they attacking any eggs in my other tanks, would it be safe having them here?

besides good food and water changes is there any other trick to kick breeding on my C.pigmaeus?

Ps: sorry for the bad english

[MatsP]

1. I don't think Oto's will eat the eggs - they MAY do, but unlikely. But the Panaque probably will, and possibly the Farlowella. I'm not saying ALL eggs will be eaten, but if they are placed where the Loricariids can get to them, then they will go, I suspect. In my L128 + L411 tank, I do get the odd C. metae surviving - which is more than the eggs in the breeding net does! But I'm sure if I left 30 eggs in there, I'd still only get like 2-3 per spawning - I will try next time, as I have no luck at all with the breeding net.

2. I'm pretty sure nearly all cory species will eat wrigglers - too much of a temptation. You have to move all fish out, or move the eggs into a raising container of some sort.

3 + 4. Shrimp and snails do not eat healthy eggs.

[I doubt you have Farlowella acus - it may be what it said on the tank when you bought them, but it's 99.99% sure to be incorrectly labeled - F. acus and F. gracilis are often listed, but no fish is collected for the trade in this region, and very few captive bred specimens are available in the trade, but the species is almost certainly F. vittata or some other more common species].

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Mats