Tiny Cories

[whuntley]

Hi,

I'm a fan of the smaller catfishes, and it goes back to the discovery of the habrosus featured on another thread, recently. I was a neighbor and friend of Stan Weitzman when he did the first collection of this species.

No, it was not in the jungles of Brazil, but in the tanks of Nippon Goldfish, when they had a store in Palo Alto. They were a contaminant in a shipment of hastatus. This was circa 1958, as I recall. Stan went on to be the first describer of the species.

They have been available from aquabid, but at prices I wasn't eager to pay. Corydoras hastatus have been rare as hen's teeth in CA in recent years. I also see none on aquabid, but admit I haven't been a constant watcher. The SF Nippon Goldfish store got in a half-dozen about 4 years ago, and a friend in SF grabbed all of them. He was going to share, but must have lost them, as I never heard again.

If they are widely available in SG, I would think they might leak into the commercial channels here. I can hope, as I'd really like to get back into breeding one or more of the tiny Cories. I lost my last hastatus babies to a chloramine disaster in Santa Clara about 10 years ago (we were just learning), and had to give away my pygmaeus when I shut down my Fremont fishroom about 5 years ago.

Pass the word to the exporters that miniature Cories are so scarce in CA that they never last more than a day or two in the stores. Maybe they will send some my way.

Wright

[stormhawk]

Hi Wright,

Its possible to help you out here but hastatus are available on a seasonal basis. I have some friends who are breeding them in good numbers but the young fish may not make it through the shipping process.

Pygmaeus and habrosus are available more commonly than hastatus. Those will pop up at the shops every few weeks or so. I'll see what I can do.

Getting word to the exporters is one thing, whether they'll believe a person's view is another thing altogether.

[RonWill]

Maybe they will send some my way

either they will or I will, but with their habitual dashes to the surface for air, will they travel well in breathers?

Wright, young pygmy corys are fragile creatures (regardless whether hastatus, pygmaeus or habrosus) and don't take well to temp or water shocks. When weather permits, gimme a holler and I'll see what I can do, ya?





Meanwhile, here's something to make you drool... just bastered this little 8mm cutie today during water change

[whuntley]

Ronnie,

Much too cold for safe shipping of fish or eggs, I think.

BG sent some H. formosa and Endler's from LA and the Endlers were all dead.

For my local weather, go to

http://www.weather.com/index.html

and plug in my zip code (93514).

Wright

[stormhawk]

Ron, I think eggs will do better during shipping. Cory eggs usually take up to 3 days to fully develop and hatch out. My last spawning of Corydoras pygmaeus gave some eggs that took a good 3 days of development in warm weather before they hatched out and started to scurry about.

With regards to the fish, they need a faster means of shipping if they are to sent in breather bags. The habitual dashes to the surface occurs when they find that oxygen content is either too low or they're stressed from some form of pollution in the water.

Depending on the species in question, some have been known to give off a form of poison when kept in cramped quarters. The dwarf species don't do this but one should limit the numbers packed per bag to a safe minimum.

I have seen some bags full of C. habrosus being dumped into the tanks at the LFS and getting sick soon after. C. pygmaeus is the toughest of the lot, with hastatus coming in real fragile after pygmaeus and habrosus.

[RonWill]

Jian Yang,
Judging from past parcels to Wright, even a week long incubation may not be adequate. [Gawd knows what's taking the system so long for Airmail deliveries ]

I just checked and Bishop registers 32ºF = 0ºC. Windchill may drop it down to 26ºF (-3ºC, yes, minus). Definitely way too cold for shipping fishy stuffs. Looks like Wright will have to wait till the weather warms up [meanwhile, let's just make him drool ]

[stormhawk]

Ron, if you want to get some other corys for breeding attempt a visit to Gan's Fish Farm would be great. A new shipment just came in and there's at least 10 species to choose from.

Yup I guess Wright has to sit tight for now and start drooling.

[whuntley]

That weather.com thingy is so useful for fish shipping that I wonder if it will come to SG some day? [It has, see below! Yippee! ]

You can use it to see any city in the US and get both current and forecast information. The 10-day forecast is pretty good for airmail from SG, I suspect.

I just discovered that the service is valid for many major international addresses. It made me feel warmer just to see the balmy conditions in Singapore. [It is -1C here, right now, at 7:30AM.]

Why the delay in air mail? It is the customs and security folks justifying their jobs by storing the mail until they get a "Round Tuit." Canada seems even worse, by comparison. We could learn a lesson from them. They seem to know how to get even less govt. efficiency for their tax dollar than we do.

Wright

[nonamethefish]

I think they have appeared at my LFS once or twice when I visited-if only they would appear now!

[RonWill]

Ron, if you want to get some other corys for breeding attempt a visit to Gan's Fish Farm would be great. A new shipment just came in and there's at least 10 species to choose from.

Jian Yang, thanks but no thanks. As is, I have more babies than I can comfortably handle. [how long more do you expect me to babysit your trays of fry ]

Remember the 2 Corydoras trilineatus that Kho left for you and it took you ages to pick 'em up? Know something? I'm keeping them now... for very good reasons :wink:



I had the pair in a partition, together with 2 male Simp fulminantis, and since the Simps didn't harass them, they went ahead to 'do their thing'.



There're quite a number of eggs stucked onto java fern but siphoned some out for closer observation and to try my 'Cory hatchery'.

Incoming water is from a simple uplift and drains out through filter pad.


Too bad my C. hastatus are only 1cm... otherwise, I'll be very tempted :wink:

[stormhawk]

Tsk tsk, I'll pick up my fry somewhere next week. Weekend's booked with some activity. I'll make arrangements for collection with you in private. Thanks for the help. :wink:

I remembered you telling me the trilineatus were in the partition but I forgot, so did you (to remind me), to take them back. See, lucky I didn't pick the trilineatus up or I'll be one with lots of eggs to play with. The trilineatus are great spawners giving up lots and lots of eggs. You can keep them if you want.

If you want there's a bunch of pretty nice pandas at Choong Sua. They're simply cute. I bought 5 plus a pretty large sterbai earlier today. No dwarfs for now though, unless that is you want to try Aspidoras.

[RonWill]

Jian Yang,
Call me fickle-minded but guess what? Pick up the C. trilineatus when you drop by to collect the fry. Looks like I'm running out of space faster than I anticipated.

Folks,
I'm on a roll here. The Corydoras melini (aka False Bandit Cory / Diagonal stripe cory) didn't do a thing, regardless how I trigger a spawn. Things are looking up when I decided to tinker with a diet of home-made food, high in veggie fibre, spirulina, astaxanthin, phythoplankton, fresh bloodworms, tubifex and newly hatched BS. This awsome diet was intended as conditioning food for my killies.


Corydoras melini trio in partition.


Eggs attached to anubias.


I ran out of space in the sump and rigged up another hatchery, with water flow extended from a Henri.

Let's see if I can do something with those pygmies.

[RonWill]

Folks,
In case anyone wanted to know what an itsy-bitsy-teenie-weenie Corydoras hastatus looks like, here's a 4mm fry, shot in a plastic spoon.





Wright, hope this warms up your frigid mornings :wink:

[RonWill]

Folks,
The Corydoras trilineatus eggs didn't make it. Despite receiving highly oxygenated water and good water circulation, they became fuzzy balls.

C. melini by contrast, did much better. Here are the day-old fry + new hatchlings. [Clickable images as always]



Aren't they just adorable? :wink:

[damnit]

Woah Ronnie, you breed c.hastatus and c.melini? That's really exciting!!! I'm gonna go back to cories after most of them died off after the CNA came to my house to interview. Cories are truly one of the most fun fish I've ever kept :P :P

[RonWill]

Woah Ronnie, you breed c.hastatus and c.melini? That's really exciting!!!

Joe, I get a kick when my fishes breed and every spawn is exciting but my latest Otocinclus affinis spawn takes the cake... I've been waiting for this for 6 years!.

Here are the C. melini at one week. All 22 of them, zero casualty :wink:


These, together with my 3rd batch of 27 Betta simplex fry, were transferred today to a bigger grow-out container.


BTW, what did the CNA interview have to do with dead corys??

[damnit]

BTW, what did the CNA interview have to do with dead corys??

Great stuff Ronnie!!! Nah I was referring to my cories dying off one by one after the interview. Maybe too shocked from too much flashes? :wink:

[stormhawk]

Ron, closeup pictures of the older melini fry and also a little blurry shot of the juvenile similis in your tank. :wink:

[learner]

I believe this is quite common in Singapore but it seems that it is seasonal too. I could be wrong about it.

[stormhawk]

Yi Hong, first of all the species is Corydoras habrosus, not hasbrosus. Lots of people make that mistake too so you're not alone.

Its not a seasonal species though, but stocks depend very much on their availability from farms that are breeding them. Most of the time these are farms that are located in neighbouring countries, especially Malaysia and Indonesia.

They're a cute species to start with and one of my favourites.