Number Of Corys?

[fee de mer]

I inherited a cory catfish from a friend who has changed to marine, she has always been by herself but today I bought two more, is this enough? Also does it matter that the original one is quite a bit larger?

 

[tribalbrit]

6 would be better, size is unimportant!

 

[fee de mer]

Okay thanks! Do they all have to be the same type e.g. all peppered?

 

[pablothebetta]

Yeah, the cories should be of the same type for it "to count". Therefore if the cory you recieved was a peppered cory, you will need to buy other peppered cories to go with it

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Ideally, you want to have at least six of the same species, but they do so much better if you can get 10+. However, few questions that come to mind are...

• What dimensions does the tank have? If it has a good footprint, a larger group could live happily
• What filter do you have in the tank?
• How long has it been "cycled"? Corydoras do not take well to unstable tanks, generally speaking a tank should be 6+ weeks cycled before adding any of these catfish
• What other fish are now in the tank besides the 3 catfish? Please give us species and quantities. Adding more fish to an overstocked tank could spell disaster.

 

[fee de mer]

In my tank currently I have:
1 male swordtail
2 female swordtail
1 balloon platy
1 ram cichlid
3 peppered cory catfish

My tank is a juwel rekord 60 litres (60x30x30cm) and has been set up for 3 years

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Peppered Corydoras have far cooler temperature requirements than Ram Cichlids, <21C versus 25C (for Bolivian) or 28C (for German), a more tropical species like Sterbai would be far more suitable. http/www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/_species.php?species_id=271 (Paraguay and Uruguay are seasonal countries, just not so extreme as UK, but they will only experience mid 20s for a few summer months). They grow far too big for a 60x30x30cm, something close to ~7cm and quite chunky, they are far more suitable for a typical 3-foot tank.

Even if you were to seperate the Peppered into their own tank, Swordtails should reach ~10cm and need a good sized tank, 4-foot would be prefereable. The tank upgrade would then enable your cichlid to claim a territory and at the same time give a group of innoscent Corydoras somewhere to escape to if the Ram had a funny five minutes.

I have a 54l (60x30x30cm) Juwel Korall60, it houses seven, ~4cm adult Persian Killifish. If these fiesty fish were community friendly (they have been known to kill fish many times their size), the only Corydoras I would consider would be a small group of pygmeus/habrosus/hastatus, but then these miniture catfish really do need 10+ groups and that would overstock the tank in my opinion.

 

[fee de mer]

Okay thanks for the advice maybe ill look into getting a slightly larger tank.