I Want To Have A Tank Of Pygmy Corys

[DragonLass]

I recently won a betta tank on ebay, and the person who I won it from is throwing in another tank for me as well. The tank is a cube shaped one, measures 30cm x 30cm x 30cm, so about 27 litres or 7 gal.
So of course I could just leave it as a spare, but where would the fun be in that

I have always loved watching cories at the lfs, but i've never had the appropriate tank for them. Would this 7 gal be large enough for a small community of pygmies?
If so, how many would be about right?

Also, if I set up this tank for them, would it bother the cories at all if from time to time I was to put a few platy fry in there with them? (Of course, I would make sure the fry were large enough not to be considered food )

 

[Inchworm]

Hi DragonLass

That sounds like a nice little tank you have there!

If you could find true miniature corys like C. pygmaeus, C. hastatus or C. habrosus, you could easily keep 6 or 8 of them in there. Until they are fully grown, you could even keep a female betta there too.

Or, it would be a good place to house a few platy fry, if you choose to do that. Just make sure that the total amount of fish doesn't exceed the carrying capacity of the tank. That will be a little tricky to monitor, but you will have a good idea when it begins to happen, and then you can start doing regular water tests to keep it safe. I think the platy fry will begin to look cramped in a 12" cube before you have serious problems.

Alternately, there are a number of smaller, around 2" corys, that would work too, but you could keep fewer of them. Three or four C. pandas or C. metaes would be nice, but that would limit the number of fry you could keep with them to very few.

Please let us know what you decide to do.

 

[DragonLass]

Thank you for the info Inchworm. That is good news, I wasn't quite sure if the tank would be big enough
I will definately get some cories then, I will have to shop around and see which of the fish stores nearby have or can get my some genuine pygmy varieties, as they don't seem to be all that common here in Australia.
Which is fine, because I will make sure I take my time to research and build them a nice environment so they can be comfortable and display their natural cute behaviours

I will be sure to report back with pictures once I have everything set up!