Strange Cory Behaviour

[ulster exile]

I spent most of last night watching my fish as I sat at my dining room "studying" (in theory ) and noticed that at around 9.30pm the corys became more active.

I have six 'gold lasers' (CW010 I think). Usually, they stick to the floor of the tank and 'wander' around (for want of a better word), not necessarily all together although sometimes a couple stick together.

But all of a sudden they started exploring everywhere - some were going up and down the glass and a couple kept going over the crypt leaves (I've quite a few c. wendtii in there). Looked like they were looking for food - the rest of the tank became more active too, especially the loaches.

So, about 10.30pm I fed the tank. I was too lazy to start defrosting stuff, so it was a mixture of catfish pellets, novo prawn, tetra prima and some micro floating pellets for the pencils. But the corys went mad. They started darting here and there. Two particulary seemed glued to each other and whenever those two crossed paths with a 3rd or a 4th a sort of tussling broke out with mad darting swims then more tussling. Once, there were 5 of them doing this darting and tussling and the group broke into two but they briefly continued the behaviour in the two groups.

After a little bit of darting and tussling, they would break up and start frantically looking for food, then when paths crossed it would start over again.

I have to say that I struggled to see all that was going on, because most of this happened in and around the base of the crypts, but I've never seen them act this way before - they were even spooking the SAEs! Not sure how long I've had them, maybe around a year and a half.

I know what I want to believe it was (ie spawning behaviour) but I'm not sure whether it was and don't want to get my hopes up and I can't, hand on heart, say that I saw a T-ing. Could 3 days of the water level being dropped below the spraybar (because of my near-miss with overdosing CO2 and a weekend away) have encouraged this behaviour? I've never even sexed them properly, but think that there's at least one, poss two females in there.

 

[Cory_Dad]

Hard to say.

If the female was really fat then maybe it's a prelude. As I understand it the 'T' thing happens only when the female is ready to drop the eggs.

Keep an eye on it though.

 

[OldMan47]

Some of the suggested techniques to get corydoras to spawn include lowering the water level for a few days then refilling with fresh cooler water. The idea is to simulate a period of drought where the water level would drop followed by a fresh cool rain. I have never bred cories so I don't know the details but it sounds like you may have stumbled into part of the process by accident.

 

[ulster exile]

Thanks for your replies.

They were at it again the following night, although the behaviour was not as frenetic. However, I cannot see any eggs and I wouldn't have said that there was any one fish which looks particularly gravid - I have been feeding lots of bloodworm/whiteworm and a few bits of prawn recently (not all at once of course) so fat could look gravid to me.

Last night I combined a cool water change with lowering the level to just below the spraybar so it's "raining" again for them. Would be nice if something happened, but I'll not pin my hopes on it and I can't keep this up forever anyway, since my CO2 needs to go back on before I'm bombarded with algae again!

 

[ulster exile]

Well the corys are still showing this behaviour most nights with feeding (around 9.30pm-11pm) appearing to be the trigger for the behaviour. I still haven't seen any eggs though, so I'm wondering whether instead of at least one, poss two females to 4 males, I actually have 6 males. However, there is one who is bigger and a lot of the chasing seems to be directed at that one, so I'm presuming that I do have at least one female.

 

[jollysue]

There is a "Courting" procedure that can start before the lady is thoroughly ready. The courting can include looking for the spots she likes for the eggs. The males may also get involved in the search. Once she is ready then she does the T and lays the eggs. I assume some Cory species' courtship and spawns are for different periods. The first spawn could take longer preparation, also.

Keep your eyes open and keep repeating the cool water changes combined with the good eats.

There is not much doubt that the lady is releasing hormones. She has the whole tank excited!

 

[ulster exile]

Thanks for your reply Sue - much appreciated Will carry on as normal then.

 

[jollysue]

Yes, don't get discouraged. I have had my melini for 2 or more years and they are just started to give me eggs and fry. Some species take longer. The lasers are one of the slow starters, I thionk. My green neon lasers are beginning to get started. I saw a lay checking good sites for eggs the other day with a fella, but no final deed that I can see.