Colony Breeding

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Are there corys suitable for colony breeding beyond the dwarf varieties(c. pygmaeus, c. hasbrosus, c. hastatus)? I've got a 20L I want to set up as a colony for c. pygmaeus (as soon as I find some), but I have a new 40 breeder (thanks for the sale, Petco) and was thinking of setting it up as a standard size cory colony tank.

I've raised a number of corys in the past, aneus, Pandas, Peppered, etc, but always pulled the eggs/adults, never as a colony. Not looking for large production quantities this time (I'm out of swimming pools to raise them in...), just for fun and as a neat tank.

Thanks,

Jeff

[MatsP]

Many corys will, given the oppurtunity, eat their own eggs/fry, so it's hard to breed them in a colony. However, if you have LOTS of plants, and lots of little hiding spaces, then you get a few survivors here and there.

--
Mats

[corycrazy]

I bred 12 pygmateus corys in a 10 gal and they produced a lot of off spring,never touched the eggs,but the fry did disappear,so i think they munched a lot of them,i eventually did raise 15 corys from them recently in a fry tank and they are now 3-4 months old and in with the adults

[corybreed]

I keep almost all of my Corys in groups of six or more. I currently maintain 45+ species. In tanks that are well planted there are usually some fry swimming around. It works best with species that are not big egg eaters such as pygmaeus.

Mark

[grokefish]

LOL this must be where I am going wrong, always thought cory's didn't eat eggs/fry

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When I first started breeding cories years ago, the adults didn't bother the eggs but ate all the fry as soon as they hatched. That's when I learned to pull the eggs or adults. I got so I could raise and sell about 150 a month, but cories don't grow that quickly so I had kid's swimming pools all over the place to raise them in. Eventually I saturated the local market, there was no Aquabid or eBay then, and I made a deal to wholesale them all off.

I want to start a breeding colony of one of the dwarf species in a 20 long, but my LFS hasn't been able to get any for several months and even Aquabid doesn't have many (out of season?). Since Petco had a nice sale on tanks, I picked up a 40 breeder and thought I'd try a colony of full-size cories too. I think I'll just stock it with some cheap aneus cats and lots of bushy plants like cabomba, along with some rubble for the fry to hide in, and see how it goes. If it doesn't work, I'll use it for grow-out for angels and let the cories be part of the cleanup crew.

Thanks,

Jeff

[andywoolloo]

most of my fry survive in the canister filter, not on purpose, then get released to the tank when I locate them at cleaning time, otherwise i think they get eaten, eggs or newly hatched. but i get alot from the canister. my sterbai colony has doubled.

when i had a colony of peppered corys i never saw any fry. so figured they ate all the eggs, cause they d be there one day and gone the next

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Well, I got a deal on nine peppered cories, they're in quarantine for a few weeks and then we'll see how they do in a colony. I've got a lot of cabomba and anacharis from other tanks I'll put in as cover, as well as some driftwood and I'll put together a rubble pile of larger stone gravel to help the fry out.

Thanks everyone.

Jeff