# cories??



## Lydia

how do you breed cories, and are they easy to breed? also, how can you tell whether they are male or female?


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## Damon

You need to be specific. There are many types of cories (literally at least 50 species). They aren't all bred the same way either. Pick a type of corie and someone here (Fishnut is the guy to ask) can help you out. Females are plumper and usually bigger than males.


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## TheOldSalt

Cories often breed in groups, with several males servicing one female, so you'll need a group like that for starters. The big fat female will get a nice pink belly at spawning time. When mating, the fish embrace for several seconds, belly-to-belly, and when the separate you can see that the female is carrying some eggs, usually around 4, clasped in between her ventral fins. Then she looks around for a place to put them, usually on a plant, and then attaches them to the selected spot. Then she goes back to the males, and the process is repeated until she's laid around 100 eggs.

Cories are pretty easy to spawn, but they need to be properly conditioned first, just like any other fish. Cories rarely breed in a community tank due to inadequate diet.

Simpte is correct about the importance of species in spawning. Each species has it's own variations on the theme, and some of them are significant.


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## redpaulhus

I haven't talked to him lately, so I don't know how often his site is updated, but Tim (clothahump) always had good info on breeding corys:

http://www.corydorasworld.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=1

To reinforce/support what was said above - I've got a few groups I'm hoping to induce to spawn, and am feeding with a rich mix of live blackworms, whiteworms, grindal worms, and frozen bloodworms...


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## doggydad38

I've only bred two species of Corydoras, C. aeneus and C. hastatus. The first one is very easy, or at least has been for me. These are my personal favorites in my Guppy grow out tanks. I have females laying eggs even when a male isn't present. If I have an open tank, I will, on occasion, breed my Cories and sell to the LPS or include some with my Aquabid auctions. The seconds ones were a fluke. I haven't been able to breed them again in 10 years of trying, off and on.. I use these in my newborn to 6 week old fry tanks. They are small enough that they won't bother the fry and two to a 5 1/2 gal. aquarium do a nice job. Good luck with your attempts to breed your Cories. Also, be careful with live foods. Some can carry other parasites and, if you have a gravel bottom, some can bury themselves and cause some aggravating problems in your tank. I'm not saying to never feed live foods, just be very careful with the amounts. Again, good luck.
Tony


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## Lydia

thanks tony


i have albino cories, and the reason i asked is because first i would liek some babies but also my female (im guessing thats waht it is) if very very rotund and fat, and the other cory (im guessing a male) is not


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## Larry-T

Many of the fish in the Amazon basin breed at the onset of the rainy season. The reason is that once the rains start, the waters rise and cover the dead plants, etc... left behind as the water dropped during the dry season. As the waters rise and cover the rotting vegetation, an infusoria bloom occurs, which provides the ideal food for newly-hatched fry. So the general technique to try with many seasonal spawners is to first, condition the fish and then wait for a prediction of a storm coming through. This means that the Barometric pressure will drop. Before you turn out the lights for the night, make a MAJOR (35-50%) water change with water that has less dissolved solids and is about 10 degrees F cooler than the tank water. This usually triggers spawning in such fish within 48 hours - often much sooner.


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## Lydia

will that hurt my other fish which are zebra danios, platies, mollies, and a gourami?

also im not sure i understand about the conditioning....could you please explain that better?

if i do get eggs, what should i do? if they hatch ( i know i shouldnt count my cories before they hatch or even lay eggs  i just want to know this stuff before i even try) should i put them in a breeder net?


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## TheOldSalt

A 50% water change with distilled water will do a very nice job of simulating heavy rains, and the 10 degree temp difference will only come out to 5 degrees at a 50% change, or 3 degrees at a 35% change. Your other fish shouldn't mind much at all. In fact, you really should be doing big regular water changes anyway, but that's another thread. The rain simulation is a common trigger used for lots of fish, including a heck of a lot of catfish, and it works wonders for the native american fishes I breed the most.

Conditioning... there are lots of things which help a fish prepare for spawning. Some fish are happy with just getting a lot of really good food which they can use to mature their eggs, but some need seasonal cues as well such as temperature swings and/or trends in photoperiod. In many cases, the hard-to-breed fish can be coaxed into spawning by all of these factors and even a few more.

Luckily, Corys seem to be satisfied fairly easily. Stable temps in the mid 70's, a long 10 hr or longer photoperiod and lots of protein in the form of topnotch foods will usually give good results. C. aeneus is one of the easiest species to breed, often spawning with no extra trouble than the good foods. Make sure that they get enough of the good stuff for a few weeks. If your tank has a light timer, crank the photoperiod up to 11 hours a day. This stimulates hormone production in the fish which makes their eggs ripen. ( NOTE: some fish spawn in the winter, so this wouldn't work. It's important to always know the natural breeding habits of your fish if possible. Truly tropical fish don't have much of a winter, though, so giving them tropical daylengths covers this base okay ) 
Cories usually spawn in the dark, right after sundown or just before dawn. It's helpful that they know when that will be, so the light timer is very helpful to help them get used to the day/night cycle. This is why Larry said to make the water change just before lights-out; the effect will have time to kick in by morning. Also, remember what he said about the barometric pressure. Fish can feel that, and they know when it's supposed to rain, so doing the water change on a rainy night will work better than on a clear night. Of course, you should make sure that your females are ripe and ready first, or else you're only wasting your time. It's a little harder to tell with the albinos since their bellies don't get as pink, but you should be able to tell.

As for the eggs.. if you have those other fish in the tank, they will likely eat the eggs, especially the danios. Moving the eggs, on the other hand, is pretty tricky, but doable if you can move the whole plants or whatever to which they are attached. Don't try to pick them off of what they're glued to, because you'll probably only kill them. The fry can go in a net okay, but they'll need a lot of good, tiny food which will make a cloggy mess of the net without very regular cleanings.


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## Lydia

ok is there any other way to tell males and females apart? because, like i said a little bit ago, one has a very big belly and the other doesnt....also, do i need to have more than one male per female? about the light, i leave it on long....usually from 8am-11pm ....i never thought about this before, but am i leaving it on too long? the tank is in the living room and i always thought that here wasnt any reason to turn of the light before everyone went to bed because the living room light would still be on...and about distilled water...does RO water work? if not, where can i get distilled water? what kind of foods should i feed them? i feed them bottom feeder pellets, and the other fish get tubifex worms that were mixed with the flake food when i bought it, and dried baby shrimp....what else should i feed them?


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## Damon

R.O. is distilled water. And your photoperiod is too long. 12 hrs max is what the fish need. They need regular cycles like we do. There is no other way to sex cories other than venting (which I don't recommend for the average fishkeeper). Cories should be in groups of 5 or more as they are social. Getting 2 to breed in a community setting will not happen (or very unlikely). With 5 or 6 cories, you will get at least 2 females and 2 males which will make breeding much easier as well as make your cories happy. The albinos are typically C. Aenus.


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## Lydia

ive been meaning to get more cories but i havent had a chance to go to the fish store for a while so i havent got any more...i wanted to get at least 2 more...i dont want to be overstocked so i dont know if i will get any more than that

what different foods should i feed them?


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## Damon

tubifex (freeze dried), bloodworms, brine shrimp, anything you feed you other fish.


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## doggydad38

Sexing mature C. aeneus is relatively simple. You notice I said mature. Females tend to be longer and much plumper. Also, the ventral fins on the female tend to be a rounded paddle shape, the males' are thinner and noticeably more pointed. These have been my observations anyway.

Tony


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## Lydia

well mine are definately mature...i think i have a male and a female...so i need to get at least 2 more cories before they will breed? like i mentioned before i dont want to get a whole lot more or else i will be overstocked....but since all my other fish pretty much swim in the top area of my tank would it be ok to get say 3-4 more? i also have alot of plants and i do regular tank maintinence....i dont want my cories to be lonely....do you think that would be alright? thanks for answering....

:fish:


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## Z Man

Just one pair of cories WILL breed. The reason for the extra males is because one male may not have enough 'milt' (sperm) to fertilize all the eggs and you will not have 100% viable eggs.


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## awesome kid

some eggs will get fungi on them and turn white
i would remove those ones
GOOD LUCK!


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## Lydia

awesome kid said:


> GOOD LUCK!




thanks i think im going to need it


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## awesome kid

you are most certainly welcome, im trying to start breeding some _CORYDORAS MELANOTAENIA _ myself


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## Lydia

ah.....good luck!!!!! i want to know how it goes!!


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## Lydia

well i have cory eggs now!!! they laid some on the wall of the tank....some look almost clear and the others are tannish looking....but the ones that look clear im wondering if that is just where my other fish got hungry and ate them off the glass leaving just the gluelike stuff that stuck them to the side of the tank? also what should i feed them if they do hatch? should i put them in the breeder net with my platy fry? i cant scrape them off the glass without harming them, can i? i put my breeder net in front of the larger clutch so that my fish cant eat them but the smaller clutch is unprotected...any ideas how to protect them? TIA for replys!!!!


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## awesome kid

ill let you know how mine goes, but i havent got them spawning yet. right now they're in a community tank with some tetras which im trying to pawn off to pet stores, its not going great.


> the smaller clutch is unprotected...any ideas how to protect them


you might be able to rig a breeder net using some of the material that most fish nets are made of, just an idea.
heres a link to another thread that has that topic
http://www.fishforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3233


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## TheOldSalt

Congrats on the cory eggs!

You probably can't scrape them without damage. It can be done, but... yikes. 
If your platy fry are still very small, then yes, you can keep them together. The cories will probably demand better food than the platies, though, such as microworms, but they might eat liquid fry food or egg yolk until you can get them other stuff. Luckily it doesn't take very long at all for the fry to start looking like corys, and at that point they become a little bit easier to feed. If you have a pond nearby, scrape the plants for aufwuchs, the tiny microorganisms growing all over them. These make excellent food for tiny fish fry, and are the best part of "greenwater." The resulting stuff will be a green soup, which you can then pour over the fry to feed. If you turn off the water pumps a few minutes before feeding, the greenwater will stay in the breeder net for several minutes while the fry feed, and then you can restart the pumps. Growth will be rapid if you feed them like this a few times per day for about 10 days, and then they should be willing to eat all sorts of other, much easier, stuff.


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## Lydia

thanks! :-D 

ok so i wont try scraping them off...there is only one clutch unprotected anyways...there are three clutches grouped together that i put the breeder net in front of so the only fish that can and will get to them is my oto and he doesnt bother them
my platy fry are less than 1/2 and inch long...how do i get/hatch microworms? and as for egg yolk, do i just put a very small amount in the breeder net and turn off the filter/pump for a little? im not sure if there is a pond anywhere around here but i will look...and in how many days should they hatch? just so i know how long i have until i have to have food for them....thank you very much for the replys and suggestions!

:fish:


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## TheOldSalt

The eggs typically hatch in 4-6 days. 
The egg yolk you can push through a fine mesh strainer to turn it into a fine paste, or you can just get some Liquifry type liquid fry food from the store.
The greenwater should be easy to find.
Foods like microworms you can get from various places which sell them in culturing kits or in bulk. You can find ads aplenty for these places in the backs of fish magazines, or you can search online. One online place I know is called "The Bug Farm." I lost the URL, but a gogle search should find it pretty quickly. they have all sorts of live foods and other stuff.


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## Lydia

ok thanks very much!


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## awesome kid

when can i feed fry BBS?


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## grewalsb

*I have cory eggs in a community tank!!!*

Does anyone have any advise on how to keep my eggs without them getting eaten? My pleco and paradise fish have already started munching down on some of the eggs and I'm not sure if I want to risk moving the eggs as I'm very new to this. This will be my first batch of eggs!!!! I didn't even know they were cory eggs until I happened to notice one of my cory's laying them. And yes, you can breed just two cories in a community tank. I have three but one is a panda cory while the other two are albino and peppered C. aneois (sp??). Do you think just putting a net over the eggs might help? Any advise would be oh so helpful! Thanks!!!


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## Lydia

it didnt work for me.....all of them either hatched and then got eaten or got eaten before they hatched....i hope you have better luck


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## awesome kid

i am going to set up a seperate tank for mine to breed, and when they do, move the cories back to my community tank


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