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Hi guys,

apologies if this topic has been discussed previously but I'm eager to get people's views and experience on raising corydoras fry in tanks with bare bottoms vs sand substrate.
I am in the process of setting up a bank of aquariums that I will house and condition a small group of either Pygmaeus or Hastatus in. Once I have seen them spawn I would move them out and into the next tank and repeat the process working through the 6 aquariums until I hopefully have 6 tanks of babies. I can then move the babies from the first tank into the main grow out and start the cycle again. I plan to use this method to build up some larger numbers of corys for my display tanks and work my way through various species as I get more experienced.

As additional info these tanks all have sponge filters, heaters, almond leaves and java ferns. Pretty basic and want to make the maintenance and hygiene as simple as possible to increase the success rates.
I plan to provide first foods of micro worms and newly hatched brine shrimp, not sure if I need to provide infusoria yet. Any other foods I should consider that you recommend and easy to culture or get hold of?

I am particularly interested in your thoughts, as well as pros and cons of bare bottomed vs a substrate in these tanks. Especially in terms of keeping them clean, success rates and any other factors that would be useful.

Also have any of you found having a few dwarf cheery shrimp in the tanks beneficial as I've heard they eat the infertile and fungus infected eggs.

Cheers,
Sam

Hi all,

Samdaark wrote: ↑14 Dec 2020, 15:19 As additional info these tanks all have sponge filters, heaters, almond leaves and java ferns. Pretty basic and want to make the maintenance and hygiene as simple as possible to increase the success rates.
I plan to provide first foods of micro worms and newly hatched brine shrimp, not sure if I need to provide infusoria yet. ..............I am particularly interested in your thoughts, as well as pros and cons of bare bottomed vs a substrate in these tanks. Especially in terms of keeping them clean, success rates and any other factors that would be useful.

Also have any of you found having a few dwarf cheery shrimp in the tanks beneficial as I've heard they eat the infertile and fungus infected eggs.

Personally I would always have a thin layer of sand, some moss and some cover for the fry.

Have a look at <"Food for Corydoras pygmaeus">, which links to @Apistomaster's post on breeding <"Corydoras hastatus">.

I have <"Asellus">, or Cherry shrimps, with <"Red Ramshorn">, or Malaysian Trumpet snails, as tank janitors.

cheers Darrel

While not catfish, let alone Corydoras, whgen I was raising cichlids, I always used docorated tanks, with plants and a sand substrate.

Obviously, such a tank cannot be kept sterile. But then, fish raised in sterile conditions will not have a very well developed immune system. That is, I don't think anyone in the hobby should raise fish under sterile conditions.

The decorations ket the fishes unstressed, and when it was time to net them, it was 2 minuted to get rid of plants, decorations and so on. I would not considerthat as a problem.

Apart from no challenge for the immune system, stress reduces all immunity. That is, keeping fish in stressfree conditions will reduce at least some of the 'problems' from having not sterile conditions.

Thanks guys for the guidance on this.

I think it is pretty clear consensus that having some substrate have a lot of advantages so I will go for this option too.

Darrel those articles were really useful, thanks for pointing me to those!

Bas Pel I didn't even consider the implications of creating an overly sterile environment and this makes a lot of sense.

Something I have been wondering in terms of live BBS is that how corydoras, especially baby ones actually get them as the BBS are free swimming and I am curious how they catch them? I assume they eat them when they rest or even die on the bottom of the tank or do you think they catch them free swimming?

Again thanks for the insights, that's really useful info.

Cheers,
Sam

Hi all,

Samdaark wrote: ↑15 Dec 2020, 13:33Darrel those articles were really useful, thanks for pointing me to those!

Sam you are good, this is the great thing about this forum, it has an huge archive and a lot of posters (like @Bas Pels) who really know what they are on about. I don't need to re-invent the wheel I can go and find a post by some-one who has <"seen it, done it and got the T shirt">.

Personally I'm a pretty lazy and shoddy fish-keeper, but I can paper over the cracks by supplying the fish with a good environment, that doesn't require too much of my intervention, and letting them get on with it. I just like robust KISS solutions, ones without any single points of failure.

Have a look at <"All the leaves are brown">, <"Wood for tanks?"> & <"Nitrate">.

cheers Darrel

Always a thin layer of sand with cory fry, the beneficial bacteria in the sand helps prevent barbel loss.
I add a thin bit of sand by the 7th day of hatching at least

Looks like everyone agrees a thin, fine sand bottom is the way to go for babies.

I'll be adding some almond leaves and plenty of plants so now I just need to make sure I get the London tap / RO mix right and will give the tanks a month or so to mature.

Thanks again guys for the support.

Cheers,
Sam

I just received three more Corydoras eques from Wet Spot to go with my three from my LFS and they are doing great together. Once the 7 days Ich-X treatment is done (I do this as a way to make sure no Inc comes through) then I am going to try to get them to spawn. I have a thin layer of fine sand that they seem to really like, Java moss and i m getting some floating plastic plants (don't want to deal with real floating plants) and heavy frozen food feeding...I think cories love fine sand substrates and I think the fry are the same so a bit of sand added to the fry breeding box if/when i get eggs and pick them off and place in the fry container.

Good luck!

Cheers, Eric

Thank you I’ll need all the luck I can get.....never try breeding cories before.

You can do it

Thank you for the encouragement! I’m really excited today as I drove to my best local fish store and I was chatting with a store attendant who was super helpful and knowledgeable about using what types of dither fish to get my green laser cories to overcome their shyness...she brought me to a tank with some little schooling fish (whose name I didn’t remember) but behold in the next tank I saw a bunch of corydoras eques! Apparently they just came in last week and the owner forgot to post them on the store’s Facebook page. I already have 6 eques but I had to pick up the two small eques as they looked very male and robust and I understand the more males the better for these guys for spawning purpose. The boys drive the process so my group is up to 8 eques and I am fattening them up with lots of food....repashy gel, frozen bloodworm, , frozen daphnia, frozen brine shrimp, soaked bug bites pellets, norfin veggie pellets all soaked to avoid bloat. They love to eat! I soak their pellets for a good hour with distilled water before I feed them. I have 10 green lasers as well as 7 sterbai and 7 julies and 4 pepper cories as well. The eques and the others are all getting tubby bellies so I guess that’s good. I just need to get some fake floating plants for the eques tank as I have a huge Java moss at the bottom of the tank.