Tiny Cories

[damnit]

Cute lil hastatus

[stormhawk]

Gan, those are Corydoras hastatus like Joe has mentioned.

Breed more and you will have a constant stream of ready buyers.. like me.

Its nice to know yours are breeding and are happy in their surroundings. I had a shoal of 35 individuals and lost all except 4 survivors now. These guys have been moved to my larger tank and hopefully they'll do better there.

[turaco]

Another fry found.

[stormhawk]

Haha, what can I say, you're extremely lucky. I've only had pygmaeus spawn for me and that was only once a long time ago. Sad to say I doubt my hastatus will reproduce anytime soon.

[damnit]

Geeez this is making me itchy to order more hastatus in ... hmmmm juz got a new 5ft ... hastutus galore!!!

[RonWill]

Sad to say I doubt my hastatus will reproduce anytime soon.

For as long as the corys are in a community tank, the fry, if any, won't have much of a chance for survival (ie, from my personal experience).

If you want to get off into first gear, a dedicated tank is the way to go and it doesn't have to be a huge tank. A 2ft setup or the largest plastic tank, is more than ample. That's where I just harvested some C. oiapoquensis fry.

The C. pygmaeus is also doing their thing, as are the hastatus. Speaking of which, I need to rig up breeding tank for the habrosus too

Good luck and have fun.

[stormhawk]

Ron, I gave them a species tank all by themselves but no action for almost half a year. They were fed well on a diet of Sera Viformo and live tubifex, and still, no action.

I'm down to 4 pieces and I think they might decide not to do it at all. They're now under quarantine in a plastic container. If they don't die on me during QT, I'll move them back to their original tank. Have to do a revamp of alot of my tanks.

Nice to know the oiapoquensis are still spawning from you. I lost one adult recently, and am now left with a singleton.

[turaco]

Actually my 4 hastatus are in community tank with a big school of boraras maculatus & a few very senior australe. There are tons of moss in there. I suspect the high oxygen level in the planted tank increase the chances of cory eggs hatch. Those moss shield the fry from predation. Perhaps I should have more fry than these..

[daphne12]

wow... so many cory breeders here...nice..
makes me want to have some cory too..

[Wackytpt]

Hi Ron,

Was reading through the thread and found out that you have successfully bred hastatus.

Was wondering if you can share some pointers in breeding them?

Cheers

[SCOPE]

Breeding cories inc. hastatus is rather easy...i found the problem on raising enough fries up. Usually after the first one month, i lost much of the fries about 80%. Ya...need some pointer too

[RonWill]

Nick, as Joe have said, breeding cories is relatively easy (with exception of some difficult species and/or habitual egg-eaters) and what luck I had were mostly through trials and errors, observations, conditioning and food for the tiny ones.

The main recirculating 4ft setup has it's advantages but specific to pygmy cories, I prefer to use plastic tanks (medium size about 7 gallons, I think). Aged water, plenty of driftwood, low-light plants, and aeration with a round air-stone. No fancy filtration, lighting or other gizmos.

I feed mostly live foods to the breeding group, between 6~20, plus various tabs and pellets. I'm also fond of 'dirty tanks', ie. tank floor littered with decomposing ketapang leaves, mulm and other detritus. This rich litter provides plenty of microscopic organisms for cory fry after their egg sacs are depleted.

Water change about 50% on alternate week and if I spot tiny scooting fry, I'll squirt a small amount of green-water, moina and microworms. In all my breeding tanks, there will always be some small ramhorn snails to remove overlooked food. Fry are left to grow with the adults and the driftwoods/detritus provide ample refuge.

The pygmy tanks are kept in the shade, cool, undisturbed and 'dirty'. Works well for C. pygmaeus, habrosus and yes, even hastatus.

Good luck and keep us posted on how you're progressing.

Aside:
Joe, with my current commitments, I've decided to postpone that 'hastatus itch'. I've long decommissioned my Hiblows and gave away most of my aquarium stuffs. Have more feathers and chicks than fins right now, and going into breeding pygmys will only mean I get even less sleep. All the best to you and fellow hobbyists, in breeding the hastatus and other pygmies.

[bettaboy]

can i check the rough pricing for them sold in LFS?
what fishes can they be comm with? tetras?

[Wackytpt]

Nick, as Joe have said, breeding cories is relatively easy (with exception of some difficult species and/or habitual egg-eaters) and what luck I had were mostly through trials and errors, observations, conditioning and food for the tiny ones.

The main recirculating 4ft setup has it's advantages but specific to pygmy cories, I prefer to use plastic tanks (medium size about 7 gallons, I think). Aged water, plenty of driftwood, low-light plants, and aeration with a round air-stone. No fancy filtration, lighting or other gizmos.

I feed mostly live foods to the breeding group, between 6~20, plus various tabs and pellets. I'm also fond of 'dirty tanks', ie. tank floor littered with decomposing ketapang leaves, mulm and other detritus. This rich litter provides plenty of microscopic organisms for cory fry after their egg sacs are depleted.

Water change about 50% on alternate week and if I spot tiny scooting fry, I'll squirt a small amount of green-water, moina and microworms. In all my breeding tanks, there will always be some small ramhorn snails to remove overlooked food. Fry are left to grow with the adults and the driftwoods/detritus provide ample refuge.

The pygmy tanks are kept in the shade, cool, undisturbed and 'dirty'. Works well for C. pygmaeus, habrosus and yes, even hastatus.

Good luck and keep us posted on how you're progressing.

Aside:
Joe, with my current commitments, I've decided to postpone that 'hastatus itch'. I've long decommissioned my Hiblows and gave away most of my aquarium stuffs. Have more feathers and chicks than fins right now, and going into breeding pygmys will only mean I get even less sleep. All the best to you and fellow hobbyists, in breeding the hastatus and other pygmies.

I am currently setting up a 1ft cube for them. And leaving some in a 2ft tank with green laser and some bristlenose.

The 1ft cube setup is just sudo sand and filteration is an edn 501 filter.

I also place those 6 tubes pipe in there.

Do I need to add in some java moss, and ketapang leaves?

How do I get a culture for green-water?

WHat is moina?

Their current diet are bbs, hikari sinking pellets and diced cut frozen bloodworms.

[apistomaster]

I have maintained species breeding colonies of both Corydoras hastatus and Corydoras habrosus for several years.
I began with only 10 each wild fish and have raised and sold hundreds of C. hastatus. Young ones continuously appear and replace those I sell.
I keep a thin layer of substrate and thick growth of Hornwort Ceratophyllum. The eggs and larvae are not harrmed by the adults.
Corydoras habrous are less prolific and lay fewer but much larger eggs than C. hastatus.

I feed mine mostly newly hatched Artemia nauplii and some live black worms.
I also keep thriving colonies of Cherry Shrimp in my Dwarf Corydoras setups.

These Corydoras, especially C. hastatus, can begin breeding at a surprisingly young age. I have seen 4 month old males participating in spawning and females take about another month to begin laying heir first eggs. I have been able to maintain a stable population of about 100 C. hastatus counting hiding larvae by selling 25 from the colony ever 2 months on average. C. habrosus colony grew at a slower rate but I also had a Betta Mahachai I missed from a former inhabitants growing up without noticing it it for a long time because of the thick plant growth so it was probably eating some larvae but I have about 70 at any given time and sell off 12 every few months on average.

I keep these colonies set up in one 20 gal long tank for each group. Each tank has 2 Azoo #6 Sponge Filters, one running by air lift and one run by a MaxiJet Power Head 600-600lph/160gph and a strongly bubbling air stone. The hastatus breed well at 82-64*F and the C. habrosus spawn best if the water is 76-80*F.

[Puffer]

Hi Apistomaster,
I have 2 questions that need your advice:

(1) The dwarf corys are bottom-feeders so by feeding live bbs, would they get to feed? I can't imagine them chasing after the bbs in the mid column. My c pygmeus are fussy eaters.

(2) Wouldn't the mass cherry shrimps as cohabitants pose a danger to the eggs and fry?

[apistomaster]

Hi Apistomaster,
I have 2 questions that need your advice:

(1) The dwarf corys are bottom-feeders so by feeding live bbs, would they get to feed? I can't imagine them chasing after the bbs in the mid column. My c pygmeus are fussy eaters.

(2) Wouldn't the mass cherry shrimps as cohabitants pose a danger to the eggs and fry?

1. Dwarf Corys will eagerly eat newly hatched Artemia. The shrimp eventually begin to die and those will be eaten after they have already eaten many of the live shrimp. Another thing you can do is refrigerate your newly harvested shrimp. This will make feeding more convenient and the shrimp so lethargic that most will stay on the bottom.

2. Cherry Shrimp will not touch the eggs or larvae of Corydoras and are perfectly safe to keep with them.

[deacon]

I just got myself some Corydoras habrosus from Seaview Aquarium. They lovely little fishes and stick close to one another. There's still stock there if anyone else is interested.

[Puffer]

I got 6 pieces of the lovely habrosus at Polyart this afternoon. Their peppered black is more intense than anywhere I've seen. Now I've these housed together with my 8 C pygmaeus. Apistomaster, your advice is wonderful - my picky pygmaeus loves the live bbs! My only problem now is how to cultivate a daily supply of the bbs.

[wrongwroks]

anyone know where to get c. hastutus or pgmyeus cories? lfs got any?