I stumbled on a winning formula completely by accident, been hatching and raising peppered
corys for about a year and a half now.
I hatch them in a container with an
airstone (plus small
betta heater if the ambient temp will be too low.) I now have a permanent planted 1 gallon container that has a few
cherry shrimp all the time, but when I started it was just a bowl or small Sterilite container.
Once hatched, I'd put some
Java moss from a mature tank in with them (place to hide, plus
infusoria) and once able to swim well enough to be able to make it to the top of a 10 gallon tank, I'd dump them into my planted
shrimp tank.
Usually wouldn't see them again for a month to six weeks, the tank is very heavily planted. Eventually they'd start showing themselves, and when they were big enough not to get into the
sump in my larger grow-out tank, I'd move them to there.
I never fed them anything special; the mature
planted tank (plus pellets for the shrimp) provided enough food for the 10-15 eggs/fry that I saved out of each spawning.
Now with the permanent 1-gallon container, I give them longer in there before they go to the 10 gallon shrimp tank. Still don't have to feed them anything special in there; I put a little pinch of
Fancy Guppy or a single small Aqueon
shrimp pellet in (daily or every other day), 3-4 days after hatching when they've absorbed the yolk sac. The shrimp clean up anything the fry don't eat. Usually get 100% survival rate, every now and then one doesn't thrive once moved into the shrimp tank.
Having a mature planted tank isn't the normal way people raise cory fry, nor is it something that someone might readily have on hand to house fry. I just stumbled into it because my shrimp tank was the safest place I could think of to put them, that first time (
sponge filter, no predators.) It has worked out quite well for me overall.
