Feeding

[jollysue]

I have a Betta with in my two main Cory tanks. One of the Boys is looking quite overfed.

At present I feed my Cories live blackworms twice a day. The Synirr plakat seems to keep slim and fit, but my yellow long finned fellow looks quite overfed. I am concerned that he is over eating and that the blackworm diet is too rich for him.

Am I right to be feeding the Cories this richly twice a day? I think I may remove the Betta for awhile to uncondition him.

 

[Tempestuousfury]

Not sure about blackworms at all, but to they automatically sink to the bottom?

If the bettas go to the bottom to eat, you might want to feed the corydoras after dark. However, if you want, I suppose you could move the betta, if you can provide room for him and it doesn't really stress him out at all.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi jollysue

That's a lot of blackworms, but I know the little piggies will eat them all. Even if some of them get into the sand or gravel, they will eventually dig them out.

Unless you are conditioning them, or they are young and still growing, why not cut back to once a day and give them a spirulina disk or Hikari wafers at night. If you feed too many blackworms, the fish will actually get fat from them.

If they are too fat, you will have to put them on a diet.

 

[jollysue]

Ah, L'il Ole Fish Lady, but they love them so. It's a good suggestion, thanks. The worms are so easy to feed and actually so much cleaner than the prepared food that I tend to go with them.

By the way, I have been getting all kinds of warnings about wild caught fish and parasites. How do you approach that question with the Cories? I am preparing to dose the frontie tanks and the 100 usg (I just added 3 botia, and I didn't treat them for parasites first.) I am going to use PrazilPro as it seems easy to use.

I really have had very little luck with veggies with the Cories, including algae wafers.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi jollysue

I've always heard that it's best not to treat corys for parasites unless you have no other choice. It doesn't seem to be a big problem with them. I certainly wouldn't make it a routine thing to do with all of them.

I've never seen any sign of any external parasites and, of all the corys I've had, there is only one batch (my C. haraldschultzi) that I even suspect might have something internally. They just don't seem to be filling out like all the others do after they have been in my tanks for a few months.

I don't even know what kind of medicine to use for treating them.

All things considered, if you give corys lots of clean, fresh water and keep the temperature steady, corys are not a big problem to keep, at least compared to many of the other fish available.

 

[jollysue]

Yes compared to my other fish, I have been surprised at how few losses I've had. I still have my first two cories, but I have few if any of my first other fish from my first tank--one here and one there. They all did very well in the move. Even my pandas following your instructions have stabalized as a good sized tribe. I only did very badly with the dwarfs. I still have a couple or so. But I thought I might try them again this spring.

I had one really bad incident when I first moved. The hot water faucet turns off or down for some reason on it's own when it warms up. I was changing one of the cory tanks and without knowing it the water filling the tank went cold. When I realized it the tank was cold water. Maybe I should have changed the water again, but I hoped they would think it was snow melt.

After the shock of that waterchange I lost a few. I also had trouble with the melataenia (or whatever) and another I got this winter was very delicate. They all seem to have stablized though now. The tanks are so stable that I don't want to mess with them.

Whiskers my dog is quite taken with them and wants them to come out and play. Actually I think he thinks they are rodents.