breeding tips corydoras

conditions fish for breeding and during water
changes lower the temperature of the water
you are changing i have found that this normally
triggers spawning in the small lovable cat fish you
could also float two or three ice cubes in the tank
as this mimics the melt water from the mountains
which causes them to spawn hope this helps biff

i find that if you seperate the conditioned pair into a small tank 12x8x8 tank totally bare just a heater and box filter or airstone . fill the tank with normal tank water and let them swim around for a couple of hours to get used to the tank, then take half the water out , then top the tank up with cold water that kicks them off in to spawning (its the equivalent to the spring tides coming up the river in the wild) then let the tank warm up slowly. they will breed laying the eggs on the glass once they have spawned completely remove the parents, and put methaline blue in the tank so it looks blue about 6-8 drops this is to make sure the eggs dont get fungus(WARNING meth blue stains the silicone on the tank) with in a couple of days you will see wrigglers then they will be free swimming feed them on liquidfry

a top tip from mick

with breeding corydoras i believe it is vital to condition the corys as well as you can. there is no point in scraping a few eggs off the sides of the tank. after 2 weeks of good diet and frequent feedings with a protein heavy diet when the females are looking plump then trigger the spawning with a cool water change, if you can get lucky with a low weather pressure coming in aswell you can expect to find more eggs than normally. also the spawning process can last 48 hours so dont move the parents too early.

also another tip i have is to remove the eggs and place them in a fine net over the air pump outlet. this will contain the eggs so they dont go mouldy and makes it easy to check their progress. ill leave the fry in there untill they have finished feeding off their yolk saks.

after they are released into the tank (after removing parents) i find they feed on any micro-organisms on the sponge filters and i supplement this with microworms. corys are very sensitive at this point to changes in temp and ph. i find even matching this with fresh water using dechlorinator can even be too harsh. i use the water from my discus growing out tank. it has zero ammonia and nitrite with >10 nitrates. i do this for the first week or two untill i think the use of dechlorinated water wont be too harsh for them.

i find corys to be very slow growing in comparison to other fish. i think this is due to a slower metabolism. other fish which are free swimming carry a higher metabolism as they are constantly in motion, which leads to them needing and eating more food. another arguement for this theory is that corydoras are a long living species of fish. not the longest but for a sub 3" fish 15 years in aquaria is very impressive.

Carl how are your cory fry coming along?

like said plenty of good protein food fatten them up and hit with very cold water works every time

Any tips on getting the eggs to hatch? I've never bred anything other than livebearers so this is totally new territory for me.

I've just come home from work to find my corys have spawned. I can't remove the corys or the other fish (guppies and ottos) or the snails, nor can I take the eggs out and put them somewhere else so I'll have to chance it.

Any tips? I've dumped a load of algae wafers at the opposite end to the eggs so the snails gather up that end

can you not scrape them off the glass with a stanley knife blade into a cup then pour them into a tiny tank then add methylene blue to stop fungus and run a airstone into the tank

Try removing the eggs with your finger and place them in a net. Then secure the net above an airstone so the water circulates around the eggs. I've hatched a lot of eggs thus way. What type of corys are they? Bet you they spawned cos bad weathers coming!