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Hello all,
I recently got a bunch of different species of cories but I have yet to get any of them to breed.
I have them all in species 10gl tanks with sponge filters.
Water ph around 7.0 and soft. Temp 72-76. Do 50% water changes weekly. Feed them New Era food or frozen blood worms daily.
Tanks have about 1/4" of sand as a substrate. I've tried to add rain water, I added ice during a water change to drop the temp.
I can get some females to fatten up but no eggs.
What am I doing wrong???

Try a 75% or more water change. It maybe also that they are spawning, but eating the eggs.

If you know a weather front is coming through soon try feeding live blackworms for about 3-4 days in a row just before the front. Cory's love them and they are great for conditioning them to spawn.

verbal wrote:Try a 75% or more water change. It maybe also that they are spawning, but eating the eggs.

They could be eating the eggs. What time of day do they usually lay eggs?

Narwhal72 wrote:If you know a weather front is coming through soon try feeding live blackworms for about 3-4 days in a row just before the front. Cory's love them and they are great for conditioning them to spawn.

I haven't tried black worms yet but I will. I just need to find who has them locally.
Thanks

What about lighting? My tanks are in a room where the lights are on and off for about 3 hrs after sunset.
Also, are my tanks too small?
Also, if I have 6 sterbai's in a 10gl tank, should I remove some and just leave 1F and 2M's?

I'd like to know a little more about your water, pH KH gh?

Live foods in general are helpful trigger Walter or white worms, Dafania work too. I've had luck with playing with sex ratio. Try to adjust so you have more males than females, then every few weeks remove a few fish keeping the ratio male heavy until your down to a reverse trio, then try just a pair.

Nabobmob1 wrote:I'd like to know a little more about your water, pH KH gh?

Live foods in general are helpful trigger Walter or white worms, Dafania work too. I've had luck with playing with sex ratio. Try to adjust so you have more males than females, then every few weeks remove a few fish keeping the ratio male heavy until your down to a reverse trio, then try just a pair.

PH 7.2
GH 4
KH 4

I find that mine often spawn shortly after being moved to a new tank.

Did you mention the size or maturity of all these Corys? Perhaps some or all are juveniles. If so, just keep fattening them up. My albino corys and trilineatus always spawn after 2-3 days of live tubifex worms and a 50% water change. Good luck!

Just another thought here. Corys and plecos etc. are seasonal spawners. Folks often do not pay attention to the dry season part and only look at the rainy season factors. Seasonality means change, often substantial in temperature, conductivity/TDS, pH, current and food availability. In addition, the flooding that accompanies the rainy season opens vast new territory for the fish. And the onset of the rainy season is signaled by a notable change in barometric pressure which the fish can detect.

If there is not a dry season which persists for some time preceding the rainy, the changes that come from the onset of the rainy season have much less impact. I have come to believe that, when it comes to some species being stubborn about spawning, the way to change things up and provide the best "incentive" for spawning is to run an adequate dry season before one simulates the rainy.

I have used a variety of methods in pursuit of the above I have simulated a dry season by limiting water changes and by taking steps to raise TDS using crushed coral, Epsom and a hint of sodium bicarbonate and then used my tap to bring on the rainy. I have used my tap as the dry and then used ro/di water to help simulate the rainy. Both methods have worked for me because the key to it all it the change more than the absolute levels involved.

I will conclude by saying the above are my impressions from working with a few corys and now plecos over the years. There are many folks out there who spawn way more species on a much more regular basis than I do and they may have a different take based on their much greater level of experience.

All this said, there are still times when nothing one does in any way seems to work. In such cases a lot of folks have become frustrated and stopped trying. And then some time in the future without our doing a thing, the fish will decide its time and do their thing. What I have come to believe is that in spite of the things we do, fish still decide if and when they are ready and when they are, they go.