How Long Do Corries Live?

[guppy fan]

On average, how long do they live? I have 4 bronze ones, but two are albino.

 

[Piltdownpaul]

My parents have 2 bronze catfish that are 12-and they are big!!!!

 

[Shrimper]

There was an article in last months PFK on average fish ages that said Bronze Corys live to an average of 11 years. Obviously some will live longer as thats the average and Paul has proved!

 

[dwarfgourami]

I read the PFK article too and I don't think what they were giving was average age, more the reports they had had of maximum age (on which Paul has just improved!).
If you think about it, so many fish die young from ignorant fishkeeping that the average age of any given species is probably quite low- and very difficult to get any statistics about.
PFK admitted that some of the ages they quoted did seem impossibly high- though the cory age was clearly realistic.

 

[Coryman]

Time to step in here, I have not read the PFK article, but if they have given the maximum age of Corys as 12 years then I have been breeding at least three species of Cory that have been dead for at least four years. I think PFK need to do a lot more research before making profound statements like that.

I have a group of breeding C. sterbai at 16 years old. C. sp C139 and C. habrosus at 14 years.

I also know of many other Corys that are in their twenties. The oldest I ever knew of was a C. aeneus that was passed down three generation and was forty two years old when it died.

Ian

 

[Barracuda518]

Time to step in here, I have not read the PFK article, but if they have given the maximum age of Corys as 12 years then I have been breeding at least three species of Cory that have been dead for at least four years. I think PFK need to do a lot more research before making profound statements like that.

I have a group of breeding C. sterbai at 16 years old. C. sp C139 and C. habrosus at 14 years.

I also know of many other Corys that are in their twenties. The oldest I ever knew of was a C. aeneus that was passed down three generation and was forty two years old when it died.

Ian

42 years? Thats pretty impressive, as is that C. sterbai group you have.

 

[jollysue]

I had looked for Ian's post on the 20 years but being very inept with the search engine I gave up. Glad I did. I learn from every Coryman post. The 42 years was C. aeneus. His sterbai are breeding still at 16 years...as I understand the post.

Oops! One more time I have goofed, Barracuda. <<Nice to see you around by the way.>> I see you understood Ian perfectly.

 

[guppy fan]

Wow, thanx everyone for replieing. I hope mine live that long. I'm working hard to keep them healthy, but the water quality here isn't too great .

 

[Shrimper]

Time to step in here, I have not read the PFK article, but if they have given the maximum age of Corys as 12 years then I have been breeding at least three species of Cory that have been dead for at least four years. I think PFK need to do a lot more research before making profound statements like that.

In PFK's defence it wasn't a blanket Corys are this old statement... They have Bronze corys at 11 years, they had at least 2 other species of cory in the list and i think the max for one of them was 23 years, i've not got the mag with me at work to check which species it was though.

 

[dwarfgourami]

Just looking at the article, and they didn't actually claim to have done any research; this was just the result of some of their readers' experiences on one of their blogs. They had 11 years down for aeneus, 18 for c. metae and 21 for c. zygatus. But that certainly pales into insignificance compared to Ian's corys!

(Still wondering about the 9year-old guppy though Why would a guppy need to live for 9 years?)

 

[newfishy]

for the 9 year old guppy pondering....who knows, I had a commen hamster that lived to 10 and refused to die of old age.

 

[jollysue]

What guppy?! <<she threw her hands in the air in her angst>>

 

[dwarfgourami]

The guppy in PFK's list of long-lived fish, Jollysue. They listed the highest ages their reader's fish had got to for various species. Some of them were very standard and not particularly impressive: 5-6 yrs for several tetra species, 10 yrs for other tetras, then there were a number of species in the 20-25 bracket but mainly the ones you'd expect: clown loaches, bristlies etc. The one thing that seemed too high was 9 years listed for a guppy, but you have a point about the hamster, newguppy, I've known one of those too.

 

[richchappy]

would be great to have a cory live that kind of time, i have still got some from when i started fishkeeping about 4 years ago, and their still chucking out eggs lol