Corydorus Habrosus Water Stats

[iceprizm]

I also read that cories feed at night. is this true or can they be fed during the day with other tank mates?

 

[lljdma06]

dont frozen foods float? is there a trick to get them to sink. my fish ignore anything on the surface.

Yes, normally it does. But, I hold it in my fingers at the bottom of the tank and let it melt. The melted blood worm/brine shrimp sort of floats so you'll also need to turn off the filters for a bit so it sinks to the bottom for the Corys. Of course, if there are other tank mates, they won't care.

I always defrost my food in a small glass of tank water before giving it to them. Then I use a small 10ml baby syringe to inject the food to where I want it to be. Almost like feeding corals or anemones, which I borrowed the idea from. This is good for fry too. By now, the cories are trained to look for it first in a patch of bare substrate at one corner of the tank.

I also read that cories feed at night. is this true or can they be fed during the day with other tank mates?

Having to get up at 4:45am everyday means I'm not too keen on night feedings, so yes, mine eat during the day with the other fish. So far, I've not noticed the C. habrosus being any less active during the day, but again, I'm not up late at night to find out what they are doing then. Early morning seems to be their most active time, or when pressure drops. You should have seen them yesterday during some heavy thunder storms. All my fish were going nuts! There are also enough shady places in the tank where they can take a nap during the day if they want to. The new scape I'm planning will be even better for this.

See what you get when you post about water stats for a species? Everybody puts in their two sense about all aspects of their care. Really a nice little thread How are yours doing, by the way? Are we getting pictures any time soon?

llj

 

[OldMan47]

To feed frozen foods, I use one of the cups that my bettas came in. I fill a cup half way with tank water and put the frozen food in it. 10 minutes later I have whatever frozen food all thawed out in some water that I know is safe for the fish. When I go to my tanks I swirl the water around in the cup to stir up the frozen food and just pour some of the water into each tank. The frozen food doesn't float at all when done that way. Itr moves with the currents in the water and the fish treat it like it was alive and tring to escape them.
The spirulina that I feed most often is in flake form which can easily be crushed for the smaller fish. I also have some in stick form and in the algae wafers. All three forms are in the tanks at one time or another.

 

[jollysue]

I have often wondered about pouring in the "juice" from defrosted blood worms. Does that concern anyone? I thought it might contaminate the tank and raise the ammonia, etc. But being a war baby, I hate waste and so I am in a quandry and delema whenever I feed frozen blood worms.

 

[iceprizm]

See what you get when you post about water stats for a species? Everybody puts in their two sense about all aspects of their care. Really a nice little thread How are yours doing, by the way? Are we getting pictures any time soon?

I am adding harlequin rasboras today to my tank. so pics will have to wait.

To feed frozen foods, I use one of the cups that my bettas came in. I fill a cup half way with tank water and put the frozen food in it. 10 minutes later I have whatever frozen food all thawed out in some water that I know is safe for the fish. When I go to my tanks I swirl the water around in the cup to stir up the frozen food and just pour some of the water into each tank. The frozen food doesn't float at all when done that way. Itr moves with the currents in the water and the fish treat it like it was alive and tring to escape them.
The spirulina that I feed most often is in flake form which can easily be crushed for the smaller fish. I also have some in stick form and in the algae wafers. All three forms are in the tanks at one time or another.

I had been using the same method for feeding freeze dried foods. I was actually thinking of attaching the frozen food to a river rock to sink it to the bottom. but it will try this method first.

 

[lljdma06]

I have often wondered about pouring in the "juice" from defrosted blood worms. Does that concern anyone? I thought it might contaminate the tank and raise the ammonia, etc. But being a war baby, I hate waste and so I am in a quandry and delema whenever I feed frozen blood worms.

If you really wanted, I guess you can strain the worms from the defrosted juice and then put them in a fresh bit of water. At the most, I use about 30-40ml of tankwater to feed 4 tanks the frozen food I thaw plus my betta Albie, so it's really going to be diluted. But I don't know, never worked with frozen worms before. The daphnia look like little blobs and I honesty don't think their shape will survive straining. My own hatchery is my source for frozen BBS, so I'm abosutely sure of what is going into that cube. I do so many water changes and have heavy filtration, so if a little ammonia snuck into the tank, I doubt the fish would notice much. Algae might, but I actually think I have less algae now that I've started feeding frozen and live foods in addition to prepared, and that I actually waste less food. The fish seem more satisfied with less, and I've never been able to feed as much as I do now, except when I was raising kribensis. The plants must be soaking up the extra stuff not used by the fish.

 

[Cory_Dad]

I have often wondered about pouring in the "juice" from defrosted blood worms. Does that concern anyone? I thought it might contaminate the tank and raise the ammonia, etc. But being a war baby, I hate waste and so I am in a quandry and delema whenever I feed frozen blood worms.

That has never been a problem for me as I use 1 cube for my 60 / 20 / 25. If your filters can't hand that then you have bigger problems. I don't pre-mix because:

a) In my Cory tanks I want the stuff right at the bottom and not floating around.

b) In my community tank all of the fish are at the surface anyway so feeding them the frozen cube by hand is kinda 'kewl'.

c) That sounds like extra work; one more container to clean.

But you mileage may vary.

Cheers.