Breeding Panda Cories

[yhbae]

I'm just about to try out breeding panda cories.

I have 4 of them, about 1.5 year old. (Hopefully that is old enough). I'm still not sure of their sex, but I believe I have 2 males and 2 females.

Day 1
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I've just transferred all 4 of them from my community tank into a 5.5g tank. Substrate is a pool filter sand, filter is a Aquaclear Mini (that should create a good amount of water current). I have placed a blob of java moss into this tank which came from the mature tank. This is to both comfort the cories and to seed some bacteria. It will also provide infusoria once the fries hatch. Oh, and 75% of the tank water came from the mature tank. The heater is set to 81F.

I will be conditioning the adults for about 2 weeks until hopefully some of them turn real fat (females). I will be feeding them frozen blood worms and live hatched brine shrimps. Of course, the usual staple food (new life spectrum pelletes) will continue to be fed to balance the diet.

If anyone has any advices or correct any wrong assumptions, those will be welcome.

Wish me luck...

 

[yhbae]

Early update (still Day 1):

For some reason, they are super super active in the new tank! They are all over the place, bottom, medium and the top of the tank! I hope that is a good sign. I haven't seen them that active in a while!

I was looking to see if any of them was trying to form a "T" position but none were diong that.. (hehe that would have been too easy... ).

 

[Tolak]

Try doing a 10% water change daily with water that is a couple of drgrees cooler. This simulates the start of the spring rainy season in their natural habitat. If you really want to get serious with imitating mother nature check out http/www.aquarticles.com/articles/breedi...%20seasons.html

Tolak

 

[kell]

do corys jump?

 

[yhbae]

From what I have seen, no... They sometimes swim up real fast to get some air but I've never seen them leave the water...

 

[yhbae]

Try doing a 10% water change daily with water that is a couple of drgrees cooler. This simulates the start of the spring rainy season in their natural habitat. If you really want to get serious with imitating mother nature check out http/www.aquarticles.com/articles/breedi...%20seasons.html

Tolak

I was going to condition them for few days before starting that daily colder water change ceremony...

In fact now I am curious - is it possible for fishes to instantly spawn by providing the right environment only? I always thought that they need to build themselves into pregnancy (whatever that means, perhaps building up eggs in their body?) before they can spawn... True or false?

 

[yhbae]

Day 1
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Started feeding frozen blood worms. This is the first time I have ever tried this. Wow, these worms are fatter than I thought! I can see that the cories will have trouble eating some of the fatter ones. And some floats! Oh well, I'll have to take the uneatten pieces out and feed to the platies...

I haven't done any water change yet. I'll start on day 3.

 

[yhbae]

Day 2 - 3
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Started feeding hatched brine shrimps along with frozen blood worms and pellettes. I did the first cold water change - about 30%. I left the heater off over the night, hoping that the water temperature will stay cool...

They are all as active as they have ever been. I have never seen them this active in the community tank before... Apparently, this could be one of the signs of breeding behavior, but so far, I don't see any letter T in the tank...

 

[fishdudein]

I too am trying to spawn pandas. I have been successful with albino aeneus, they just lay their eggs on the glass, easy to see. Pandas have bred twice ( that I know of), both times I didn't realize it until I saw fry swimming around the tank. Info I have read suggests that they are more secretive than aeneus, and try to hide their eggs. Also lay a smaller amount of eggs than aeneus.

 

[yhbae]

Thanks for the info. I too have read that they are somewhat harder to trigger the spawn and they tend to lay few eggs at the time.

I did put some java moss and java fern in the tank so that they have places to hide... Still keeping my fingers crossed...

 

[yhbae]

Day 4
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Fed more frozen blood worms, and did cool water change. Still nothing...


I guess from this point on, I will only post updates when I see anything interesting happening, as oppose to posting "nothing" every day...

 

[fishdudein]

Double check your water from any water changes you do in your breeding tank, esp. if you siphon off the bottom, there may be babies you don't notice that will show up in your drawn off water. Don't throw out the babies with the bath water!

 

[Red]

Would any advice given here be applicable to Sterba's Cory (Cordydoras Sterbai)?
I have 2 and they are the cutest little things in the tank.

I'd like to generate a few more (!) so any advice would be appreciated, in fact I'll start another topic.

 

[yhbae]

Double check your water from any water changes you do in your breeding tank, esp. if you siphon off the bottom, there may be babies you don't notice that will show up in your drawn off water. Don't throw out the babies with the bath water!

I'll keep that in mind...

So far, nothing. I've been changing cold water every two days and been feeding BBS and worms. I wonder whatelse I can do to help the situation?

Also, I am begining to think may be I have either 4 females only or 4 males... Hopefully that is not the case.

 

[yhbae]

Would any advice given here be applicable to Sterba's Cory (Cordydoras Sterbai)?
I have 2 and they are the cutest little things in the tank.

I'd like to generate a few more (!) so any advice would be appreciated, in fact I'll start another topic.

Most cories spawn in the same way and can be triggered using the same technique, but depending on the species, some are much harder to spawn. From what I have heard, Sterbai are one of the more difficult ones to trigger spawn.

I agree though they look great. That would be my next cory collection.