Breeding The Panda Corydora

[Akasha72]

I've found with my panda's that the females are bigger and slightly fatter - not massively so it's not be that noticeable. If you have one or two that are bigger then they are likely the females. I can only tell my females from the males when they are sat together but with my peppered cories the female is really obvious as she's really rounded and noticeably bigger.
 
As to the eggs - they are small and white to begin with. They darken in colour over 3 or 4 days until they are a very dark grey/brown. Mine tend to lay them in clusters of 3 or 4 but this does appear to depend in the maturity of the female. A young female tends to only lay in one's and two's. You may see them scattered across your glass one morning or attached to leaves

 

[l_l_l]

Thank you for these pointers!
I have added 5 more cories and am starting to notice they are getting fatter and fatter (I'm feeding frozen brineshrimp) and more food than usual.
I'm doing 50% water changes with colder water and they seem to be more active than usual.
 
Hopefully I see some spawning activity

 

[l_l_l]

There is a low pressure system coming our way tomorrow.
I'll do my water change tomorrow and feed a lot tonight, hopefully I get something!

 

[Akasha72]

fingers crossed for you! Keep us posted

 

[Esequiel]

I noticed this thread and it reminded me of some old pics that i had from when i used to breed Panda Corys.
 
I had a simple 3ft tank for the adults;
 

 
I got around 60 eggs at a time (i would do a water change and chuck a few ice cubes in the tank) which was literally every water change which i then removed from the glass with a razor and into a tub i made;
 

 
Its an ice cream tub with polystrene to make it float, and an air tube siliconed in.
 
I would lose 10 to 20 eggs from fungus unless i watched like a hawk, then from the 40 or so good eggs maybe 25 would survive.
 
They went into a 4ft grow out tank ready to go to the LFS
 

 

[CalebK96]

So this thread has been dead a while but I'll chime in as I've been doing research on how to breed pandas specifically, though most conditions are similar for all cories. Keep in mind that I have no experience with this yet, I've just been gathering every bit of info and advice that I can (and if you have any more then please share!) The big difference I've found for pandas is the need for cooler water than other cories, as they live further up the headwaters of the Amazon, in what essentially are little mountain streams. This probably also explains their smaller size. As far as breeding conditions, dropping the water temp to around 70 seems pretty common, and excess filtration/water changes is definitely a necessity. A sand bottom is preferable to gravel or nothing, and as eaglesaquarium shared it is definitely good to have plenty of plants, specifically java moss, water sprite, cabomba, things that are bushy but with fine leaves. As for how to keep fry from dying (remember I haven't tried this yet, just read about it), dosing methylene blue to control fungus on the eggs is recommended, and some people just add cherry shrimp because they eat the fungus-infested eggs but ignore the healthy ones. Having sand also appears to help the fry grow healthily versus glass or gravel on the bottom. As I said, these are all things I have read, not witnessed, so take them with a grain of salt. Anything else anyone has found out would be awesome to learn, too. But I definitely wanted to tell you all about the cherry shrimp/methylene blue trick to keep the eggs and fry healthier, since it seems most of you had struggled with that. I imagine it helps increase the yield for each spawn.