Concerning Food

I have moved in an albino cory with my betta, Gillan. They seem to be getting alone fine. Gillan attacked a platy I put in there and I had to immediately pull her out. But I think the cory gets along because he/she (how do you tell anyway) isn't afraid, while the platie ran and acted like prey. Anyhow my real question is concerning Gillan eating some of the cory's shrimp pellet (I feed the cory about 1 a day). He was following the cory around eating all the fragments that flew up behind the cory. Obviously I will want to feed him less betta food, but I'm wondering if there might be any other problems that may come of this. ???

 

My only suggestion is to either feed the cory at night when you shut the light off because that's resting time for Gillan or feed Gillan his food first so he's full and then feed your cory. You can also try to feed the cory in a corner in the back of the tank and make sure that he knows you are feeding him. Those are my only suggestions. If I come up with any other suggestions I'll let you know. Natalie

 

I've heard that if you crush up the cory's food and squirt it down on the bottom, the cory will find it but the betta won't be able to eat it. However, I had one betta who was determined to eat Amaethon's food no matter what I did. Whenever I fed or didn't feed aoSul, when I put in Amaethon's food, aoSul would find it, eat it, and get so bloated I would swear he was going to explode. I took Amaethon out for the health of aoSul, and put Amaethon into the community tank, where he gets along swimmingly with the other fish.

 

We tried corys with 3 different bettas and 2 of them surprised us and defied our efforts to feed the corys with their love of shrimp pellets & algae wafers. Only our 3rd (at the time) betta ignored the corys food (so now he has all 4 that we bought to try putting in with the bettas - would've got 6 but the store only had 4 & turned out to be a good thing). We're hoping to find some sort of decor that corys would swim into but bettas wouldn't so that we could put the corys food in that (if it exists) - we also have a tank of platys that we need to find that for as those stomachs with fins eat anything & everything.

For now, we are feeding them at night, but I've noticed our bettas and platys seem to look rather well-fed when we get up so I'm not sure if it's working for us or not. I'd agree that's the best thing to try and see how the bellys of the fish look to try & figure who's eating how much.

 

If he's only eating a little of the Cory's food then I don't see a problem. If he's preventing the Cory from eating or he's overeating, however, that's when you may have a problem. In that case there are tricks you can try, such as feeding the Cory at night, but it may be necessary to separate them if that doesn't work.

A little off subject, I would get a few more Albino Cories. Cories are social fish and get lonely and even shy if kept alone. A group of three is generally considered minimum.

 

I tried pushing the pellet into the gravel and it has mimimized the amount of food Gillan gets.

About the lonely cory, unfortuately, when I set up my first (ever) tank I bought 3 different corys. I didn't know they were different species, they all came out of one tank and were the same size. But one is albino, one is peppered and the other a more plain grey. They have never shown any affection for each other at all. So I don't think it's any worse for him to be with the betta. And also it is a 5 gallon tank and anymore corys would be too many.

 

The cory will be okay I think. They like having a shoal but they'll do alright alone if need be. Truthfully in the wild they hang out in huge shoals of hundreds in little pools.

I had the same problem btw--Rusty discovered that cory food was tasty and would follow the corys around now and then. If he saw food fragments flying up he would rush in and actually try to grab the pellet and take it away. It was kind of funny and annoying at the same time. Nothing really helped to get him to stop--even using veggie pellets now and then which he didn't like. Bettas are intelligent enough to be constantly curious and willing to solve certain kinds of problems for themselves.

 

The cory will be okay I think. They like having a shoal but they'll do alright alone if need be. Truthfully in the wild they hang out in huge shoals of hundreds in little pools.

I had the same problem btw--Rusty discovered that cory food was tasty and would follow the corys around now and then. If he saw food fragments flying up he would rush in and actually try to grab the pellet and take it away. It was kind of funny and annoying at the same time. Nothing really helped to get him to stop--even using veggie pellets now and then which he didn't like. Bettas are intelligent enough to be constantly curious and willing to solve certain kinds of problems for themselves.

LOL.. isn't that like a Betta? Mario would do that & Aslan too.. it's like they know it's not for them so they'll eat it just for that reason alone.. we can relate to the feeling exactly. What we need is some sort of decor or something that corys could make it into, but not Bettas

I agree with poefox, he'll be fine. we only have 2 in the Platy tank because of it being at full load. I think 3 or more is one of those "ideal" numbers - it's nice if you can do it, but if you only have room for 1 or 2 and give good care and have found your feeding solution, they'll still be happy fish so your cory will do well.