My Newest Arrivals

Akasha72 said:

I'll keep ya posted ... alternately I need to ask again at the lfs and see if they've managed to locate any more. They're big cory fans at my lfs so there is hope

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My LFS is too, their last shipment had 14 types of cory. I grabbed the last 8 the had of Corydora Virginiae which I hadn't seen before and the last 9 Pandas, the pandas are small and very cute, the virginiaes are a lot larger. The pandas although smaller are a lot more confident while the Virginiaes disappear as soon as I go near the tank. I have to sit still in front of tank for 5 mins till they reappear.

my melini's are even worse Munroco, I see the one female very occasionally but the two males could be dead - I know they're not cos I've crept up to the tank late at night when the lights are out and seen a slight glimpse of them around the back of my bog wood. They never come out to feed and god only know's how they are surviving. It's a devil to know what to do about it. If I increase their number they might venture out but then again they might not and that's a waste of time. They are closely related to my panda's who are really confident and so I don't understand why the melini are so shy. 

Baccus, I worked out how to change my title ... I did it just for you lol

Very nice, Akasha, I have visions of you like the Simpsons mad cat lady grabbing armfuls of corydoras and rather then hurling them at people smuggling them home to your tanks .
I have noticed since settling into the tank the two smudge spots that had the most blue/ black up their bodies have increased the dark colour almost to their heads, while the other two that had smaller smudges have stayed pretty much the same. I am wondering if the difference is down to being a slight difference in family or them being a sub family. The two with the most smudge hang together and seem braver than the ones with the smaller smudge, while the two with no smudge still are the expert hiders that never seem to venture out. Honestly if I didn't have such a pack of peppereds in the tank you would never know there was one catfish in there let alone hordes. But at least I know the peppereds are happy since they never cease in expanding their numbers with yet more babies.

yes, my peppered were prolific breeders when they were young. Now they are old and their spawning days appear to be over. Now my panda's have taken over the spawning ... just not as many eggs as the peppered lot. I once collected well over a hundred peppered eggs. She was laying them in batches of 6 all over the place. The panda's seem to leave a clump of about 30 on the glass and they always lay them in the night so by the time I get up, see the eggs and try to collect some the tetra's have eaten more than half!

Lovely Cories.  I've not seen them before either.
 
I really couldn't pick a favourite as I love them all! 

all three of my new arrivals are out together sifting for food and guess what I've just seen .... the smallest one following the biggest one and doing a little 'waggle dance' in front of her. The 'waggle dance' is the term I invented to describe the male offering himself for spawning. I think it best describes what it looks like!
 
Soooo .... now I know I've got at least one male .... I knew at least one (the biggest) is female ... the jury is still out on the thirds sex.
 
This means they are now mature and I can start hoping for a spawn and an increase in their number - Excited Much? oh 

I have two new arrivals to the cory gang
 

 
That's right! I've managed to get two new melini cories to add to my group! They are now a group of five ... phew .... it's only taken me 6 months but we got there.
 
They've settled in (apologies for picture quality but the lights are out currently)
 

 
They're already sifting for food so that's a good sign! They were really active in the shop so hopefully I'll start seeing my melini group instead of them just hiding all the time
 
Now, I just need to get lucky with my smudge-spots and I'm done

They're lovely.  They remind me so much of my Pandas

Thanks far_king, they are very cute. They remind you of the panda cory because they are closely related to them. The shop also had corydoras metae and if you didn't know what you were doing you'd be hard pressed to tell them apart from the melini. I dithered so much myself, knowing that there are so many similar cory species to the melini that I went and grabbed a staff member to double check! 
 
My lights have just come on and both the new additions are out and investigating my tank. They met my other cories - they're currently saying hello to one of my smudge-spot females. I've just taken some more photo's as my lights came on about 10 minutes ago. I'll upload them and see if there's any good one's amongst them or if they're all blurred lol

here we are .... 40 photo's later I finally get one that isn't blurred ... they're busy lil bee's both of them. I think they are hungry though so food is going in in a moment
 

well ... hahaha ... it seems I chose a girl and a boy. I've had breeding behaviour from them tonight! I'm shocked. They've only been in my tank for an afternoon! Guess they like it then lol