Are Cories Algae Eaters?

[Carp4U]

Was hoping to get a few cories in my 15gallon planted, don't have any fish in yet just extending the cycling slightly.

Will these help keep some of my green algae down or not? i was thinkin of having about 4 in there.

advice please!

cheers¬!

 

[Ludwig Venter]

May nibble at it, but not algea eaters as such.

 

[jollysue]

Yes to the above. Ludwig Venter is correct.

That would include feeding them a strict diet of algae wafers.

 

[nmonks]

Algae and decaying plant material are important parts of their diet, often overlooked by aquarists. If you spend some time on Fishbase and take a look at what they *actually* eat, for example here for the Peppered Corydoras, you'll regularly see algae and/or plant material included in their diet.

What they don't do is scrape algae from solid objects in the same way as plecs or Mollies.

Algae wafers of the type sold for plecs make excellent staple food items for Corydoras. Complement them with frozen bloodworms and other small meaty items, and you'll have a good general diet for most species. In fact most catfish do very well on algae wafers; my Synodontis eat little else and are thriving (and big!).

Cheers, Neale

May nibble at it, but not algea eaters as such.

 

[jollysue]

nmonks, do you feed your Synos algae tabs exclusively?

Corydoras are insectavores and omnivores. As an omnivore they obviously need plant matter in their diet, but not exclusively.

They will graze on algae for some green matter but should not be expected to live on it exclusively or to clean up the algae in a tank like a Pleco or amano shrimp or oto.

BTW your link does not work for me. Oops! It works for me now. I had Corel PhotoShop open and working on something. The quote from fish base on the Peppers diet is this: "Feeds on worms, crustaceans, insects and plant matter (Ref. 7020)" FishBase Peppers

Ian Fuller recommends omnivore food and live insects for Corys, not zucchini and algae tabs. When raising Cory fry I do not raise them with zuccini like I might with Plec fry. They get all the plant matter they need by grazing on algae and plant matter. Since I keep lots of moss in the tanks, they get plenty of green w/o any suppliment. What they need is some meat protein, your anticdotal evidence to the contrary

When I drop an algae tab in the community planted tank, the L182's jump on it and stay until it is gone. When the black worms are gon the Peppers may come nibble at the edges.

Do my Synos nibble my plants? Yes, just as my minnows do, but I will feed my minnows omnivore flakes not sea greens. Omnivore food includes the greens, does it not?

Carp4U: Get some amano Shrimp, a Bushynose Plec, some otos, but in a new tank you will not have enough algae to feed them. You will need to suppliment their diet with bits of algae tabs.

 

[nmonks]

nmonks, do you feed your Synos algae tabs exclusively?

Not completely, but they must account for about 75% of their diet. I use Hikari Algae Wafers for my Panaque, and apart from snails and the occasional bloodworm they grab during the daytime, these wafers are what the Synodontis nigriventris get to eat. They certainly don't seem to mind: they are very fat and very healthy. Hikari Wafers contain plant and seafood protein, and are really quite well balanced in terms of nutrition.

Incidentally, Synodontis nigriventris is also an algae/plant eater in the wild, alongside its well known taste for insects and small invertebrates.

[URL="http/www.fishbase.org/summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=9599"]http/www.fishbase.org/summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=9599[/URL]

BTW your link does not work for me.

Fishbase can be funny like that; try these:
<a href="http/fishbase.org/Summary/speciesSummary.php?ID=10926" target="_blank">http/fishbase.org/Summary/speciesSummary.php?ID=10926</a> (peppered cory)
<a href="http/fishbase.org/Summary/speciesSummary.php?ID=7777" target="_blank">http/fishbase.org/Summary/speciesSummary.php?ID=7777</a> (bronze cory)
Both report algae and plant material as dietary items. My Corydoras eat a lot of other stuff too, including bloodworms 1-2 times per day as well as the algae wafers which they go absolutely bananas about:

That Garra is about 9 cm long, and so you can see that the female peppered Corydoras is anything but undersized! And they've spawned many, many times and I have at least three generations of them in the tank at the moment.

As I said before, these aren't fish that graze algae, and they certainly can't survive on nothing but algae, but by the same token algae is an important part of their diet that is often overlooked by fishkeepers. To simply feed them protein pellets and bloodworms isn't a "natural" diet, hence my original posting. Just making the point that these ARE algae eaters, though not in the same way as, say, Ancistrus.

Cheers, Neale

 

[jollysue]

I may have mistaken your intent, nmonks. But actually I do see more people on this forum feeding their Corys Hikari Algae Wafers exclusively. I don't think Ian or Frank or Bryan, all very experienced Cory pros feed their very expensive stock algae tabs as the staple. Frank I know feeds his newly hatched fry dried decapsulated baby brine shrimp with some algae suppliment to keep them regular. Wigglers can subsist on green water, but most use decasulated baby brine shrimp and micro worms of some sort. I used Atison's Betta Fry Starter at first.

I remember a post by Ian saying that Corys can be supplimented with algae tabs, but Tetramin and Hikari Sinking Tabs, etc., are a better staple, because the Corys will get plenty of green by grazing on the algae in an established tank and the omnivore tabs inclue green matter.