Apparently your cory catfish have been, ahem, gettin’ busy, and there are white little eggs all over your glass. Babies!
So what in the world do you do now? Stay tuned to learn everything you need to know about raising corydoras fry.
Hi, this is A Gamer’s Wife, here to share relationship advice and pet care tips
– so you can take care of all the members of your family.
So if you’re new here and wanna see more, consider subscribing to the channel and clicking that notification bell.
Okay, for most of you, breeding corydoras was probably an accident, but here’s what you can do to encourage it.
For me, I had a 20 gallon tank with 6 adult-sized albino cory catfish. To get them in the mood, condition them by feeding
lots of good food, and then do some water changes with water a few degrees cooler than normal. Next thing you know,
boom, everyone’s gettin’ frisky
The males are chasing the females and doing the T-shaped position, and then the female lays sticky eggs on any ol’ flat surface around.
If you leave the eggs alone, it’s like a natural form of population control because most of them will get eaten.
However, if you want maximum survival rate, remove the eggs with a credit card or your finger and put them either in
a grow-out tank or use a smaller container with no holes that floats in the main tank.
Add an air stone for gentle water agitation and put a few drops of methylene blue to prevent fungal growth.
And then perform daily 50% water changes as needed.
The fertilized eggs turn clearish yellow-brown, whereas the unfertilized eggs turn solid white.
Remove the unfertilized eggs so they won’t grow fungus that spreads to the fertilized eggs.
After they hatch in 2-5 days, clear out the methylene blue from the water.
I’ve used both breeder baskets and grow-out tanks, and I prefer the latter.
My plastic breeder basket had slits at the bottom that the fry kept falling out of,
and the mesh breeder basket had corners that the fry kept getting stuck in.
The grow-out tank I used was just a 10-gallon clear plastic tub
I normally use as my quarantine tank, and I feel like the larger volume
kept the water cleaner and gave the fry more swimming room to avoid stunted growth.
To keep the water quality high, I did
50% water changes three to four times a week with a large siphon that was covered with a filter media bag and thick rubber band to prevent casualties.
To remove fish waste or uneaten food,
you can use airline tubing with a chopstick tied on one end, and then clamp the other end of the tube into a net or bucket
so you can catch any escapees.
In the first 1-2 days, the cory catfish are still feeding off their yolk sac so don’t give them anything to eat.
After that, I feed the fry about two to three times a day.
Each week I introduce a new kind of food and then alternate between the different foods for greater variety and nutrition.
Week 1: I feed Hikari First Bites, which is a very fine dust-like food you can find from Petco
Don't use your fingers. Just stick a chopstick in and swirl it around in the water to make the powder sink.
I don't use egg yolk because it's too messy, and then crushed flakes seem to float too much for the catfish fry to reach.
Week 2: I add frozen baby brine shrimp, which looks like
pink liquid when you feed it to them because the particles are so small.
Week 3: I introduce the straight-up raw powder form of Repashy Community Plus gel food.
I don't bother making the gel until they're a little bigger.
Week 4: I introduce frozen daphnia from my local fish store.
I couldn't find any frozen cyclops, so that's what they got.
Once fry can eat adult food and they're too big to be eaten by the other fish
They can join the adults in the big tank, maybe when they're 1.5 to 3 months old
Just note, the longer they spend in the fry tank with no competition for food, the faster and bigger they'll grow
No one likes to talk about culling, but if a fry has a genetic defect that shouldn't be passed on
consider euthanizing that fish
I had an issue where one of my biggest fry had a crooked spine
and while it didn't seem to hinder him, I couldn't in good conscience allow him to spread the disorder to future generations
With my first batch of eggs, I ended up with about 15 healthy fry that were big enough to join the community tank
However, that means my aquarium is kind on the overstocked side
So if you've got a population boom consider giving away fry to friends
selling them through your local fish club or Craigslist
or giving them away to a fish store where you may or may not get store credit
Question of the day: What's your favorite type of fish to breed and why?
Comment below so I can get some ideas for my next breeding project
If you like this video, hit that subscribe button and follow me on Instagram for daily updates
Good luck with your cory catfish and I'll see you next time!