Night61
Fish Herder
i got two pepered cories for my ten gallon. i am new to the fish so can you guys give me any suggestions to care for these little guys. there really cute i wanna take good care of them.
New To Corys
- Thread starter Night61
- Start date
well cory cats are very social so they like to be in groups (5+). you probably want to have a smooth substrate or sandy to protect their delicate barbels. try to feed sinking food (they eat just about anything). they are great scavengers but good water quality is still necessary. overall great fish
Cory_Dad
Fishaholic
Congratulations sailornight6.
They are great, aren't they?
Yes, get at least 3 more of the same species. They are scavengers but they don't eat garbage. They are omnivores so feeding them a diet of algae wafers is not a good thing. Get them sinking tables that have protein in them like Nutrafin Max Sinking Tablets, Sera viformo food tablets, Hikari Sinking Wafers. You should also supplement with live or frozen food like brine shrimp, blood worms, black works, etc. A varied diet is the best (mine get all of the above). Once a week I give some of them sera vipachips although my C. atropersonatus don't seem to care for it. But the frozen food? Oh ya!!!
After feeding them give them about 1/2 an hour to finish eating. If there is food left over after that and they don't seem interested anymore, siphon it out otherwise your tank will foul pretty quickly.
Beach or river sand is the best. I've tried silica sand in one tank but it appears to have worn down their barbels so that's getting changed to beach sand. I've also had luck with using smooth pea gravel. I find that gravel is the easiest to keep clean as I vacuum it weekly when I do my 25% water changes (very, very important). Sand is harder to vacuum. Well, actually it's easy to vacuum but you also vacuum up the sand...
Give them a place to hide, either under some wood, some dense foliage or a flower pot.
Check out the library or bookstore for books on them and search the Internet for more information on your specific species. This forum and Google is your friend.
Good luck and cheers.
They are great, aren't they?
Yes, get at least 3 more of the same species. They are scavengers but they don't eat garbage. They are omnivores so feeding them a diet of algae wafers is not a good thing. Get them sinking tables that have protein in them like Nutrafin Max Sinking Tablets, Sera viformo food tablets, Hikari Sinking Wafers. You should also supplement with live or frozen food like brine shrimp, blood worms, black works, etc. A varied diet is the best (mine get all of the above). Once a week I give some of them sera vipachips although my C. atropersonatus don't seem to care for it. But the frozen food? Oh ya!!!
After feeding them give them about 1/2 an hour to finish eating. If there is food left over after that and they don't seem interested anymore, siphon it out otherwise your tank will foul pretty quickly.
Beach or river sand is the best. I've tried silica sand in one tank but it appears to have worn down their barbels so that's getting changed to beach sand. I've also had luck with using smooth pea gravel. I find that gravel is the easiest to keep clean as I vacuum it weekly when I do my 25% water changes (very, very important). Sand is harder to vacuum. Well, actually it's easy to vacuum but you also vacuum up the sand...
Give them a place to hide, either under some wood, some dense foliage or a flower pot.
Check out the library or bookstore for books on them and search the Internet for more information on your specific species. This forum and Google is your friend.
Good luck and cheers.
Congrats on your purchase of some corys, they are great little guys to have in a tank on their own or in a community tank.
Like has been mentioned have a group of them (for your size tank I would say 5-6 max), need not be the same species as they will normally interact with each other. Having 1-2 of 2-3 species is a good way to keep a group of them but also experiences different species.
Like Cory_dad said a mixed diet is the best for them - Sinking pellets (my personal view is shrimp although will eat pretty much any) but live foods are best - brine shrimp are great just be sure not to put to many in. Tubifex worms are also great and all my species seems to like them the best of the lot.
Like has been mentioned have a group of them (for your size tank I would say 5-6 max), need not be the same species as they will normally interact with each other. Having 1-2 of 2-3 species is a good way to keep a group of them but also experiences different species.
Like Cory_dad said a mixed diet is the best for them - Sinking pellets (my personal view is shrimp although will eat pretty much any) but live foods are best - brine shrimp are great just be sure not to put to many in. Tubifex worms are also great and all my species seems to like them the best of the lot.
Pretty sure I never said it was better/preferred to have different species together, just pointing out the option to a person new to the species who may want to keep several species. Having purchased 2 and keeping them in a smaller sized tank he is obviously not looking to breed them (at this stage anyway). Thus having a mixture of species could be better for him, while still keeping a group of them.
If you are breeding them then obviously they need to be the same species but if you are just having them in a community tank to watch etc having sets of multiple species is fine - Not aggressive towards each other and actively swim around in mixed groups together and by the looks of it enjoying themselves.
In one of my community tanks I have 2 davidsandsi, 2 sterbai, 2 reticultus and 3 trilineatus and at one stage was a couple of brochis in there also. I have never had any problems with them (2ish years now) and then in each of my breeding tanks I have 6-8 of the same species for breeding purposes.
Cory_Dad
Fishaholic
Well, if he's planning to breed them than usually you need 2 males and 1 female.
Corydoras really 'shine' in larger groups. They become more active and interact with each other and play more (it's fun to watch em do their happy dance in the current). Yes, different species sometimes do interact with each other but not in the same way and to a lesser extent. The will more or less just 'hang' with each other.
It depends what your expectation and intent is as to how many of each to keep.
Cheers.
Corydoras really 'shine' in larger groups. They become more active and interact with each other and play more (it's fun to watch em do their happy dance in the current). Yes, different species sometimes do interact with each other but not in the same way and to a lesser extent. The will more or less just 'hang' with each other.
It depends what your expectation and intent is as to how many of each to keep.
Cheers.
OP
OP
Night61
Fish Herder
no no no, no breeding bad enough i have a guppy trying to impregnate everything in the tank. i got the cories to replace some agressive catfish i got, i exchanged them at the lfs for what they said were gentler fish. and my tank isn't very big but you seem to have a concenses on 3-5 so i will get one more pepered to make the cories happy. and the sinking food is a good suggestion i will get some today on my trip to the fish store. one odd question though, are snails going to be ok with these guys, i have a black mystery i am very fond of and the reason i got rid of the last cats because they were trying to eat him (and attacked a molly and betta)
ps i am a girl
ps i am a girl
A concern that I have reading this thread is how many fish you have in the tank. If it is a small community tank with other fish already in it, do not get any more cories. My own guess is the tank is fully stocked but you have not said what you have in the tank besides a male guppy and whatever he is chasing.
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