So I currently have two peppered Corys and two panda corys. Naturally I need more, as everyone on here is so adamant to remind me that I really need 6 of each. My LFS doesn’t have any peppered corys but they do have salt & pepper corys and I was wondering if they schooled together because they have very similar coloration/markings.
For backstory, I started out with one peppered then realized they were schooling fish so I needed more. I read online that corys sometimes school with other types, so I got one more peppered and two pandas. Of course this wasn’t actually the case and now I need 4 more of each. I want to make sure I’m not repeating the same mistake with the salt & pepper corys as a did with the pandas. After all, if I were to have 3 types of corys, it’d make more sense to add more color like emerald corys instead of t
Let's sort this out for you. Corydoras are shoaling fish, and they are highly social (not all shoalers are, it varies). Programmed into their DNA is the expectation that they will be in large shoals/grooups, and when this is denied them they can be stressed and that leads to other problems. With a few exceptions, each species of Corydoras in their habitat live alone or maybe two species, in numbers up to the hundreds.
In an aquarium, numbers are important for the health of the fish. Numbers more than species seems to be the case. I have some 41 cories representing 12 species in my "cory" tank. Spawning is regular, some fry even manage to survive (actually, it is the egg surviving and hatching). I always try to acquire at least five of a species, but sometimes for various reasons this is not possible. But it is the number in total that is the important factor to the health and well-being of these fish.
Having said that, I have observed that my pandas do seem to be more "together" than some of the other species, but this may just be my impression from the fact that this species is considerably more active in an aquarium. They like to "play" in the filter stream much more (some species never do this) so they are together much more.
As for the "salt and pepper" cory, if this is
Corydoras habrosus, I would not acquire these. This is one of the "dwarf" species, and they tend to do better in larger groups of their own. I don't know what other fish are in this tank (aside from the existing cories).
The other thing to keep in mind about cories is that they should not be combined with any other substrate shoaling fish, thinking here of loaches. Have more cories, fine. You can have some of the loricariids (small plecos, whitptails, etc) but not loaches.
In a tank as large as the one mentioned here, you should have at least 15 Corydoras, and you could go up from there if you like, but no fewer. If the 75g is the tank, I would have at least 40-50. It will make a considerable difference to their health and "happiness." And I'm sure we all as aquarists want to provide a good environment; the fish will in most cases live the rest of their lives in whatever situation we provide for them.
