Help! My cories spawned! What do I do??

[Gypsum]

I don't have plants, and I'm feeding them baby brine shrimp and fry flakes, which are like a fine powder.

I know plants are good for your water quality (which is why they're in all my other tanks). Is there a species that could work in that tank, given there isn't enough substrate for planting a plant, and that tank isn't meant to be permanent.

 

[mbsqw1d]

I don't have plants, and I'm feeding them baby brine shrimp and fry flakes, which are like a fine powder.

I know plants are good for your water quality (which is why they're in all my other tanks). Is there a species that could work in that tank, given there isn't enough substrate for planting a plant, and that tank isn't meant to be permanent.

Anacharis (elodea densa) is good, a fast growing weed that will suck up nitrogen, and it doesnt have to be planted / can be floating

 

[Gypsum]

So it can live in other tanks when the the little tank is not in use?

 

[Gypsum]

In other news, I have now counted at least three cory fry in the L199 tank. My diligent love and care seems to be making very little difference to fry survival, given the numbers of fry fending for themselves in the community tank are roughly equivalent to the numbers in the fry tank. Cool.

That said, eggs and fry can't be left to their own devices in my other tank, where the black corys live, because the raphaels would hoover them up in seconds. My black phantom tetras were engaged in breeding behaviour this morning, and the raphaels (along with the corys) were going nuts. Free caviar!

 

[FishGuest5123]

I have 4 really big fry 3.5 weeks old. I think the success is in feeding them 3 times a day like I did with my goldfish. I feed them First Bites and green water twice a day and live baby brine shrimp at dinner. They are swimming all over the place and racing to the top. I believe keeping them in a regular 10G aquarium has given them the ability to grow larger faster and builds their strength. Mine could easily go into to the main tank now. I’m leaving them in the 10G for some time longer. In my 5G I have 4 1 week old fry. They are getting large enough to see now and darkening in color. I firmly believe raising them on

n good food in an aquarium is superior to leaving them in a breeder basket. Pics are them at exactly 3 weeks. Just my personal opinion.

 

[FishGuest5123]

I'm muddling through this fry thing, and OH and I are at odds. We only counted three this evening. No sign of the other two, and we are hoping they were just hiding during the count. OH is worried that the 25L tank they are living in is "doing weird things" because it's more or less uncycled, and while we borrowed sponges from an established tank when we set it up, he's concerned that a few tiny fry aren't sustaining the beneficial bacteria in said sponge. He thinks it might be better to move the three-week old fry to the L199 tank.

I'm not fully agreement with him, because it seems like everyone and their dog keeps fry in grow-out tanks so it must work, and I'm concerned that the stress of being caught and thrown into a 125L tank with a bunch of adult fish would be too much for the wee guys. Nothing in it would eat the fry, but they would have competition for food, and that tank gets blasted by three powerheads.

In other words, neither one of us actually knows what are are talking about. As I've debased myself plenty by asking naff questions on Corydoras World, I made him do it this time. But I figured I would put it to this forum.

The fry are being fed twice per day on baby brine shrimp and Tetra fry flakes. They get a daily 50% water change from one of the display tanks, and they have a thin layer of sand and an Indian Almond leaf.

If they moved into the 125, they would share it with four L199s, eight C. pygmaeus, three C. habrosus and two of their fry, two C. carlae, two bamboo shrimp, and two African fan shrimp.

What would you guys do?

I’d keep them on their own longer.

 

[FishGuest5123]

I have a big clump of java moss in my tank.

 

[Gypsum]

Gah, definitely down to three black cory fry. The baffling thing is that we have not seen the other four, dead or alive. They've just vanished. Anyway, as per the above suggestions, I upped the feeding to three times per day and added anacharis. I also stole a moss ball from the 125L tank.

I see the habrosus fry in the L199 tank regularly. It's intended as a breeding tank for the L199s, so it's deliberately stocked with things that are unlikely to eat fry. And at least with L199s, once they're mature enough to get on with it, the male should do the hard work.

Next time corys in the 240 breed, I'll look up the instructions for green water/infusoria, and add an almond leaf and moss ball from one of the established tanks. I put in a fresh almond leaf with the eggs, which was, in hindsight, not that clever, as it wouldn't have been collecting microscopic critters.

 

[mbsqw1d]

..well ive gone and thrown them into the main tank. Fingers crossed for them! Have a new hobby now, fry spotting!

 

[Gypsum]

Argh, lost another one last night. That's me down to two. How have we done so terribly with this?

 

[FishGuest5123]

So sorry for your losses. Were yours in a tank or a breeder box?

 

[Gypsum]

They're in a ten-ish gallon tank. Trying to figure out quickly how to not suck at this.

 

[mbsqw1d]

They're in a ten-ish gallon tank. Trying to figure out quickly how to not suck at this.

Whatve you been feeding them? How old are they when they die?
I've had two groups of spawns, and I think I pretty much lost all of the last/youngest group. I think I lost them because they starved; for the first few weeks with the older fry, I had been feeding egg yolk, and when they were older and bigger, I began feeding microworms and stopped feeding egg yolk. I thought the youngest group might be feeding on the microworms too, but maybe not.
So, feeding egg yolk for the first few weeks seemed to be the key for raising the ones that have survived? In hindsight I'd probably use liquifry instead of the egg yolk (although liquifry is made from egg yolk..)

 

[FishGuest5123]

It seems like mine had problems right after the egg sacs were gone. I think my first group starved too although they had First Bites. I had no more losses after I got them past this point. This time I fed Infusoria along with the First Bites and much better luck. I have 7 or 8 in the 2nd tank. A lot of the eggs didn’t hatch though on 2nd bunch. Odd because same parents, same tank and temp. It seems to get better each time though. I think we just need to accept the fact that some don’t make it through the wriggler stage.

 

[CassCats]

The losses are more common within the earlier weeks. Once they get passed the 1.5 week mark, they tend to develop better and stronger so less losses. Way more delicate for the first little while.

Not anything done wrong, just more likely something just goes developmentally wrong with their growth, is my best guess.