Hi Everyone

[16vGTI]

Hi everyone, just wanted to say hello from Hawaii and how excited I am to own 11 cories. I've had the tank running for a few months and cycled it with a few mollies and slowly started stocking up. Everytime I went to go find new fish, I always seemed to gravitate toward the cories. Right now in my 30 gallon tank I've got 4 "Koi" Swordtails (they are orange and white like koi, never saw them before), 4 Silver Hatchet fish, 3 Kuhli Loaches( soon to be moved to another tank with the sword tails), and cories. The cories that I have are 4 C. Panda, 5 C. Paleatus, and today our LFS just got in Corydoras habrosus! I have never seen them in hawaii before, we usually don't get the less common species. I asked for 6 of the tiny guys and found out they were only 98 cents each! If anyone else in Hawaii is looking for these, let me know, they've got about 200 left.

I did have a few questions though:

Where can I find a reliable inexpensive aquarium chiller? My tank regularly reaches 86F and I'd like to keep these guys in the mid to high 70's. For some reason there isn't a single LFS that sells any type of chiller except for the huge $900 models. I'd also like to be able to crank the temps down a couple degrees to try and get my cories to spawn.


What do I feed the Corydoras habrosus? They seem to take interest in bloodworms, but the bloodworms are much too large for them to fit in their mouth. So I've only seen them eat TetraMin Tablets and sunken flake food. I'd like to give them something frozen or live.


Thanks in advance!

 

[nmonks]

I had good luck with Corydoras paleatus putting the fish in a pond for a few months, and then bringing them in. They spawned straight away. Do you live somewhere where that is possible?

Otherwise, adding cool water to a spawning aquarium should do the trick. Turn the heater down to, say, 72F, for a few days, then back up. As I understand it, it isn't the cold water that makes the fish spawn, but the warming up afterwards.

Provided your fish are feeding on good quality pellet/flake, you don't need to worry about live/frozen food except perhaps for triggering spawning in some species. Good flake and pellet foods are the _perfect_ diet for most aquarium fish. It may seem dull, but it is actually very good for them (I guess like tofu?).

Cheers,

Neale

 

[16vGTI]

I had good luck with Corydoras paleatus putting the fish in a pond for a few months, and then bringing them in. They spawned straight away. Do you live somewhere where that is possible?

Otherwise, adding cool water to a spawning aquarium should do the trick. Turn the heater down to, say, 72F, for a few days, then back up. As I understand it, it isn't the cold water that makes the fish spawn, but the warming up afterwards.

Provided your fish are feeding on good quality pellet/flake, you don't need to worry about live/frozen food except perhaps for triggering spawning in some species. Good flake and pellet foods are the _perfect_ diet for most aquarium fish. It may seem dull, but it is actually very good for them (I guess like tofu?).

Cheers,

Neale

Thanks for the reply! As far as your suggestions, it would be hard for me to even get those temps close to 72. Living in Hawaii, our weather here is very warm. Right now at night it's about 82F and it's been hitting 92F during the day. My tank seems to sit at a constant between 82F and 86F.

 

[jollysue]

I have never seen an inexpensive chiller. For the moment, you can cool the tank several degrees by turning a fan to blow across the water. If that doesn't do enough, try floating ice or something frozen. I used that last summer for a common goldie, but I don't guarantee that as a long term solution, since there will continue to be fluctuations in temperature that can be hard on the fish. I would try the internet for the best prices on the chiller. Try AquaBid, eBay, and I get most of my supplies from drsfosterandsmith.com. here This is not the best time of year to be shopping for chillers,though.

Try chopping the bloodworms up.

 

[16vGTI]

I have never seen an inexpensive chiller. For the moment, you can cool the tank several degrees by turning a fan to blow across the water. If that doesn't do enough, try floating ice or something frozen. I used that last summer for a common goldie, but I don't guarantee that as a long term solution, since there will continue to be fluctuations in temperature that can be hard on the fish. I would try the internet for the best prices on the chiller. Try AquaBid, eBay, and I get most of my supplies from drsfosterandsmith.com. here This is not the best time of year to be shopping for chillers,though.

Try chopping the bloodworms up.

Thanks for the help! I think I found a chiller called an iceprobe that threads into your existing filter for about $150, it's supposed to be able to cool a tank by about 6-8 degrees, so I think I'll pick up two. And I'm actually not worried that it's winter, I live in hawaii so it rarely even dips into the 60's here unless you live in the mountains. Oh and the LFS got some frozen Daphnia in, so I tried that and the cories seem to love it!

 

[jollysue]

I meant it's winter for most of us so the sales on chillers aren't running on the mainland. Glad you found some things to fit the bill.

Check for something to regulate the temperature fluctuations. I saw something at Drs. Foster and Smith while I was checking their chillers. Fluctuations in temperature can stress the fish and lower their immunity.

 

[16vGTI]

I meant it's winter for most of us so the sales on chillers aren't running on the mainland. Glad you found some things to fit the bill.

Check for something to regulate the temperature fluctuations. I saw something at Drs. Foster and Smith while I was checking their chillers. Fluctuations in temperature can stress the fish and lower their immunity.

Yeah, lots of sales on heaters going on and nothing for chillers lol. I may have to buy more chillers though, just found out my mom had an extra 20 Gallong Tank in storage that she's giving to me, filters included. As far as temp fluctuations go, that same chiller I mentioned above has a controller for slightly more that will regulate the temperature to whatever you specify, and I think it even offers a heater input I took some pics of some of my cory's, just gotta resize and upload them.

 

[jollysue]

Oh good: pics!

It might be cheaper to just air condition a room for your fish room.