Coryologist
Fish Addict
Greetings, all. Every year, usually in late August, when the weather it at its hottest, I generally have a spawning explosion. This year it has arrived early.
My room has been quite productive. Over 600 wrigglers in the past 48 hours, with more eggs to go, including:
C. amapaensis, C. aurofrenatus, C. bilineatus, C. ehrhardti, C. schultzei - Black, C. semiaquilus, C089, C120, A. albater, A. eurycephalus, C035 "Black Phantom" and C118. Additionally, I borrowed a small group of B. splendens from Lori, the young lady who works p/t in the fish room, as I do not have any Brochis, under my belt. They were here 8 days and threw a massive spawning, which have all hatched. They are getting ready to go, again.
I think it a bit more than a coincidence that both times the C. semiaquilus spawned, the C. amapaensis were just a day or two behind. As my last spawn of C. semiaquilus have started hatching, I have had 2 spawns of the C. amapaensis in the past 4 days. From one trio, The other group of six have yet to spawn.
This morning, I found that my group of C. similis, which at one time were reliable producers, but for the past 6 months have done nothing, managed to lay about 110 viable eggs, their largest spawn to date. I guess they were making up for lost time.
The C089's eggs started hatching yesterday and this morning I found at least 500 eggs in their tank. The last spawn was about 300. They do not eat their eggs. Unfortunately. lol.
So, yesterday I'm floating in the lake, wondering how I am going to find and afford all the java moss I am going to need for all the new tanks we set-up over the past 2 weeks. The stuff is not cheap and I use it exclusively for spawning my Corys. All of a sudden, I'm tangled up in a giant clump of aquatic plant that looks to me like it would be a perfect free replacement for java moss, if I can get it to grow in my tanks. I throw some in a bucket and rinse it well with a hose, looking for dragonfly larvae and the like. I put a big clump of it in a 20 USG long, containing about 2 dozen extremely well-conditioned, C. reynoldsi, which spawned for me once, a couple of months ago, but not a single wriggler was witnessed. They have done nothing, since then. Within 18 hours of putting that plant in that tank, I had 40 viable C. reynoldsi eggs. Go figure.
Also, more C. aurofrenatus, C. ehrhardti, C118 and C120 eggs, this morning. Still nothing from the C. multimaculatus, which is killing me and the C150's which have teased me with a few, non-viable eggs.
I have added a new fish to my "must spawn" list. That would be C. bondi. Since Ian brought me these in June, I have grown to fancy them, more and more, each day. They really are beautiful fish.
The CW016's still look ready to go at any minute. Fingers crossed.
I did a little experiment with a tank housing around 350 wrigglers. I completely squeezed 3 well-loaded sponge-filters into the tank. After about a half-hour, everything settled it created a layer completely covering the fry. They are buried in the stuff. The reason I am trying this, is to try to reduce fry deaths, which I think in my situation is caused by starvation during the first few day of being free-swimming. The first time I successfully spawned S. kronei, I did not know that I had done so. Since I assumed that the tank had gone south, I removed the parents and ignored the tank until I could find time to clean it. About a week or 10 day later, when I got around to it, I found 40 fry, hidden by a 1/4" layer of mulm. They were fat and happy and have gone on to have spawns of their own, just recently.
So between the introduction of a plant from the wild and an experiment that will either help my wrigglers survive or kill them all in a flash, this has, so far, been an interesting past few days. I'll keep you posted on the progress.
BTW - with the successful B. splendens spawning - if the C. reynoldsi make it, that will make, finally, officially, once and for all, a successful spawning of 50 distinct Corydoradine cats. Finally!!! - Frank
P.S. Just found 3 C. weitzmani eggs, which usually means about 35 eggs or so, in the morning.
My room has been quite productive. Over 600 wrigglers in the past 48 hours, with more eggs to go, including:
C. amapaensis, C. aurofrenatus, C. bilineatus, C. ehrhardti, C. schultzei - Black, C. semiaquilus, C089, C120, A. albater, A. eurycephalus, C035 "Black Phantom" and C118. Additionally, I borrowed a small group of B. splendens from Lori, the young lady who works p/t in the fish room, as I do not have any Brochis, under my belt. They were here 8 days and threw a massive spawning, which have all hatched. They are getting ready to go, again.
I think it a bit more than a coincidence that both times the C. semiaquilus spawned, the C. amapaensis were just a day or two behind. As my last spawn of C. semiaquilus have started hatching, I have had 2 spawns of the C. amapaensis in the past 4 days. From one trio, The other group of six have yet to spawn.
This morning, I found that my group of C. similis, which at one time were reliable producers, but for the past 6 months have done nothing, managed to lay about 110 viable eggs, their largest spawn to date. I guess they were making up for lost time.
The C089's eggs started hatching yesterday and this morning I found at least 500 eggs in their tank. The last spawn was about 300. They do not eat their eggs. Unfortunately. lol.
So, yesterday I'm floating in the lake, wondering how I am going to find and afford all the java moss I am going to need for all the new tanks we set-up over the past 2 weeks. The stuff is not cheap and I use it exclusively for spawning my Corys. All of a sudden, I'm tangled up in a giant clump of aquatic plant that looks to me like it would be a perfect free replacement for java moss, if I can get it to grow in my tanks. I throw some in a bucket and rinse it well with a hose, looking for dragonfly larvae and the like. I put a big clump of it in a 20 USG long, containing about 2 dozen extremely well-conditioned, C. reynoldsi, which spawned for me once, a couple of months ago, but not a single wriggler was witnessed. They have done nothing, since then. Within 18 hours of putting that plant in that tank, I had 40 viable C. reynoldsi eggs. Go figure.
Also, more C. aurofrenatus, C. ehrhardti, C118 and C120 eggs, this morning. Still nothing from the C. multimaculatus, which is killing me and the C150's which have teased me with a few, non-viable eggs.
I have added a new fish to my "must spawn" list. That would be C. bondi. Since Ian brought me these in June, I have grown to fancy them, more and more, each day. They really are beautiful fish.
The CW016's still look ready to go at any minute. Fingers crossed.
I did a little experiment with a tank housing around 350 wrigglers. I completely squeezed 3 well-loaded sponge-filters into the tank. After about a half-hour, everything settled it created a layer completely covering the fry. They are buried in the stuff. The reason I am trying this, is to try to reduce fry deaths, which I think in my situation is caused by starvation during the first few day of being free-swimming. The first time I successfully spawned S. kronei, I did not know that I had done so. Since I assumed that the tank had gone south, I removed the parents and ignored the tank until I could find time to clean it. About a week or 10 day later, when I got around to it, I found 40 fry, hidden by a 1/4" layer of mulm. They were fat and happy and have gone on to have spawns of their own, just recently.
So between the introduction of a plant from the wild and an experiment that will either help my wrigglers survive or kill them all in a flash, this has, so far, been an interesting past few days. I'll keep you posted on the progress.
BTW - with the successful B. splendens spawning - if the C. reynoldsi make it, that will make, finally, officially, once and for all, a successful spawning of 50 distinct Corydoradine cats. Finally!!! - Frank
P.S. Just found 3 C. weitzmani eggs, which usually means about 35 eggs or so, in the morning.
Those are a lot of babies. 
