Cory Breeding Programme Take 2

[Ben M]

hi, i'm hoping to breed my corys soon, and i thought i'd keep a record of my breeding attempts and i thought some of you might be interested. i've had a lot of help form various cory keepers and if i'm successful this might be helpful to others wishing to breed corys. i have 12 corys altogether; 8 bronze and 4 C.copei. i would have liked to get some more of the copei, but i bought the only 4 they had, and i've not seen any since.

anyway, my tank is at 26c. over the next week i'm going to lower the water level to 2/3rd's. then i'll leave the level at that for 2 days, before doing a water change, lowering the level to 1/2 and then filling up with cooler water, and reducing the temp to 24c. after the tank has been filled up, i will feed bloodworm, algae wafers and tablets. and then on the night i'll feed some more. (obviously, i'm not going to feed tons, as that would not be good for the water quality). hopefully by the next morning there will be eggs.

many thanks to plecostomas-mad, who has given me tons of help with this.

i will keep updating, hopefully with news of eggs!

 

[kizno1]

Sounds good. They will need to be feed well on lives and frozens before you start.

 

[Ben M]

thanks, i was feeding them up on bloodworm and earthworm, but then i stopped about a week ago. apparently in the fishes eyes, shallow, warm water with not much food = not good for breeding, which is what i will do. then deep, cool water with loads of food =great for breeding. so when i fill the tank up again with cool water and lots of food, they should think it's a great time to breed in theory...


cheers

 

[Tolak]

When you do the cool water change drop the temperature to a good 20c, bring it up to 22-24c with the heater. Try to plan doing this when a low pressure front moves through, watch the weather.

Traditionally corys shut down breeding during the summer, it's too warm out & they know it, this is similar to the dry season where they come from. I would condition until towards the end of summer, then start playing with water temperatures.

This article explains a bit about seasonal changes, and how you can imitate these in your breeding setup.

 

[Ben M]

thanks for the article. i've read it, and i'll try and do all of the things it says. will putting the power nozzle on the filter instead of the spray bar help with the flow? and i'll use my airstone too. i'll have a look at the weather forecast to look for low pressure.

cheers

 

[Harlequins]

Good luck with your breeding program

I've just separated my albinos with attempt of breeding them in a month or so,but going to condition them gradually,has all corys (incl tri's & pygmys which have been quite prolific until a few months ago)are holding out,probably due to the scorching weather at the moment....

 

[Ben M]

hi, it's been a while, and having been told that it would be easier to breed them at the end of summer (cheers Tolak ) , i haven't been doing my plan... however, i did a big water change today, so i thought 'what the heck' and filled up with cold water, and dropped the thermostat to 23c. straight away i gave them loads of bloodworm (that was about 4 hours ago now), and i have just put in algae wafers and catfish tablets. they all seem very active, so hopefully we'll have eggs soon. if not then at least they had a good feast lol.

 

[Harlequins]

Good luck,keep us posted

 

[Ben M]

thanks, will do

 

[Ben M]

hi, no breeding, but the bronze corys keep chasing each other up the glass. and i saw a male and female in the T position, but no eggs. every so often, one of them will start to swim up and down the glass, and then another will follow it, is this a sign that they are going to breed?

cheers

 

[kizno1]

hi, no breeding, but the bronze corys keep chasing each other up the glass. and i saw a male and female in the T position, but no eggs. every so often, one of them will start to swim up and down the glass, and then another will follow it, is this a sign that they are going to breed?

cheers

My peppers have spawned twice and both times they swam up and down the glass all day and then when it got to 9-10pm they started spawning. So you might have some eggs soon

 

[Ben M]

cool , fingers crossed!

 

[Harlequins]

Sounds promising

What the other fish don't eat them...

 

[Ben M]

yes, i'll take the eggs out if they lay any. what should i put them in? i could get a breeding net to put in the tank, or would a plastic tub be better? i have an airstone at the ready.

 

[kizno1]

Make sure your quick. Mine spawned a few days ago but the apisto munched them before i could get them out. I put mine into a breeding trap with a air stone because they need water moving over them or they will get fungus.