# Will my little eggies make it!?!?!?!



## andy182 (Jun 12, 2010)

Sooooo.....I have a HUGE dilema on my hands. I am a complete lover of my fish and have raised many to adult hood after falsely getting females instead of males when I was still such a noob at keeping fish. I have grown to have a deep desire to keep all fish alive, even if they are intended to die. I have some well, deformed to put it nicely, fish because I didnt let the whole survival of the fittest come into play, I saved them all! Yes it has led me to have 2 tanks of fish that I finally cut down from 4. So I gave my 1.5 gallon away and put my 5 gallon in storage. Now for my issue. My albino corys just laid eggs while I was at work. Now I can tell due to my peppered corys batch of eggs that I managed to hatch a couple of that these are indeed good fertilized eggs that will produce babies. My "saver" instinct in me says to go and save them all, bring out my 5 gallon tank and make it my breeder tank. BUt the logic part of me says no, let them be, they are not being eaten and if they are ment to survive they will! But I dont know. I dont want them to hatch just to die shortly later. My 10 gallon tank has 3 plants a fake pot and a fake rock in them with lots of aquarium gravel in the bottom, about 1.5 inches of it. Now my first question is, can the cory fry survive in a graveled bottom or do they need a clear bottom? Also just some opinions of whether I should pull out the 5 or not would be nice too. What would you do in my shoes. I already have 4 albino corys in the tank along with 3 oto-somethings, the mini sucker fish guys. Any and all comments would be amazing!
Andrea


----------



## AvocadoPuffDude (Jan 20, 2011)

Well, Andrea, you're asking a philosophical question, whether to allow nature to take it's course, or to intercede and raise fry. It's a personal decision, and in your heart, you know what you want to do. You need to look inside for the answer, imho.
As for the bottom, most folks keep a clean bottom when raising fry so that they can vacuum out the detritus and uneaten food. With a graveled bottom, you'd be hard pressed not to suck up the babies, too, so it again depends on if you want to intercede or let nature take it's course.
From your other comments, it seems as if you have a strong emotional connection to your fish, allowing even deformed and less-than-healthy fish survive; questioning the cory eggs' survival seems like you're tired of interceding but feel guilty about it.
Guilt is a useless emotion. It's like rocking in a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere. If you do the right thing in the first place, you don't have to feel guilty about it later, but the right thing is different for everyone.
It's just a personal choice. Do you have the room and funds and interest to rear cory fry? Maybe it's a space or economics issue as well.
Good luck to you, make the decision that's right for you.


----------



## toddnbecka (Jun 30, 2006)

You really need to rehome the clown loach and common pleco, then move the albino Cory cats into the 20. Clown loaches are social fish, need to be kept in groups, and given proper care will grow to over 12". The common pleco will grow twice that large, and much faster. Clown loaches and common pleco's are only suitable for much larger tanks (180 gallons or larger.) Keeping them in crowded small tanks will stunt their growth.


----------

