Cory Raising Journal

To begin, I’ve owned Cories for many years. I’ve raised fry in the past, but I’ve only ever had one live to adulthood. (Who is actually the father of some of these babies!) I currently have 4 Bronze Cories and 4 Peppered Cories, with three females and one male in each group. I was planning on getting more Cories after I sold my very large group of Guppy Endler hybrids, but they solved that problem by deciding to spawn the very day after the Guplers went to their new home.

They started to spawn Thursday evening and continued into the night, finally stopping Friday afternoon. The eggs started hatching Sunday evening, and the last eggs just hatched Monday night. There’s at least 20 babies, probably more. They’re a mix of Bronze and Peppered for sure since I saw both of them actively breeding, but it’s impossible to tell them apart right now.

Spoiler: Fry Pictures!

(I’m putting s in spoilers since they’re pretty large.)
It’s hard for me to describe just how tiny these guys are, pictures really don’t do it justice. They’re probably a bit longer than a grain of rice, and only a few millimeters wide.

Spoiler: Setup

This is my current setup, it’s a breeder net with a piece of plastic fry grass weighed down by a pebble to provide some shelter options for the babies. There’s also an air stone I keep in there, but I take it out any time I want to take pictures. I don’t like the fact that the babies can hide underneath the plastic frame of the breeder, I’m worried they’ll get stuck. I don’t have any other options though, there’s not enough space between the tank and the lid to float a decently sized plastic container, and I don’t have any other tanks that I could use as a baby nursery.
To anyone who’s raised Cory fry, how on earth do you keep things clean? I feel that a lot of my past attempts to raise these guys have failed from not keeping everything clean enough. I’ve been doing 10-15% water changes every day to keep the water quality up, but stuff still manages to sneak into the breeder net. I’ve been using a medicine dropper to very carefully clean out debris, but it is not easy. It’s not too bad now, but I know it will get exponentially more difficult once I start feeding them. I’m wondering if converting the air stone into a minI sponge filter might work.

Anyway, I’ll be updating this thread all the time with my progress and plenty of photos! I’ll leave this post with a picture of a bunch of them peeking out at me during a water change.

Spoiler: Excuse me mister, what are you doing?

 

Yup I know how they really look. Pictures do no justice. I have been raising fry for a long time. Day one to two months

 

So remember how I said that there was about 20 fry? I got the chance to do a better headcount today, since they’ve darkened up a bit. And it’s more like 40 fry. Definitely got more than I bargained for here, I’ve never had more than about a dozen fry in a spawn! I’m seriously considering purchasing a tank for them to grow up in, because there’s no way that 40-something fry are going to make it in a net breeder. They’ll be fine for maybe a week or two, which would give me time to set everything up. Ah, the joys of child rearing!

The good thing is that I have the resources to handle a large amount of these guys surviving into adulthood. I have a nice friendship with the manager at my local Petco, same place I sold my Guplers to. So I think that they’d be happy to resell any Cories that I can’t keep. Or I might try to sell them locally myself, I feel like Cories would be much easier to sell than livebearers! (And it does hurt me to think of selling Cories to Petco where I don’t know what kind of home they’ll be going to.)

Welp to end this off, here’s a picture of the little guys! Like I said, they’ve gotten darker, they’re much easier to spot now. They’re still super tiny and do a great job of hiding, which is why it does not look like there’s 40. But I promise you, they’re in there!

Spoiler: Little specks

 

That's soooooo cool! Do keep me updated because I have been raising Cory fry. I've had my emerald female "t" with my male albino and got both!

 

Sorry that I forgot to update yesterday! As a side note, Sarah73 your breeding journal was what inspired me to start mine, so thank you!

To get the bad news out of the way first, I’ve lost 3 fry. I know that some of them just aren’t able to live, but it’s still sad to see. I always have a few that die after the first couple days. I’m thinking some of them fail to thrive after absorbing their yolk sac. The rest have been getting more active, zipping around the breeder and learning to come to the top for air.

I stopped by the pet store and picked up a 10 Gallon as a grow out tank, the rest of the supplies will be coming from Amazon. I also got some frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp for the adults and fry when they get older.

I’ve been a bit worried about my adult Cories nutrition so I bought HikarI Sinking Wafers as a new staple food to replace my generic bottom feeder pellets. My adults loved it, they went crazy for the stuff!

The babies have been getting HikarI First Bites, but it’s been so hard to see if they’ve eaten, as they don’t have a noticeable reaction. I decided to plop in some small leftover crumbs of the wafers in for them. Imagine my delight when I checked back up on them later and saw some of them chowing down! I think I’m going to have to grind up some wafers for them as a new main food source. So the wafers were a hit with everyone! Would definitely suggest it for Cory lovers!
I’ll end this out with an adorable picture of two fry hanging out together.

Spoiler: Let me tell you all about my best friendddd

 

Wow, I think I have two pepper Cory fry. I was going to ask what to feed it or them. Thanks. I thought 2 of my 3 corydoras were too young. Surprise. Eggs.

 

Wow, I think I have two pepper Cory fry. I was going to ask what to feed it or them. Thanks. I thought 2 of my 3 corydoras were too young. Surprise. Eggs.

Yep, they can breed pretty young, though I’ve found they reach peak fertility at about 4 or 5 years old. My two 5 year old girls have been my biggest egg layers.
As far as food goes, I’ve found that they far prefer crushed HikarI Sinking Wafers to the premade fry food. It gets soft pretty quickly so they have no issue eating their fill from the crumbs. I hope your little ones grow up big and healthy!

 

Sorry that I forgot to update yesterday! As a side note, Sarah73 your breeding journal was what inspired me to start mine, so thank you!

To get the bad news out of the way first, I’ve lost 3 fry. I know that some of them just aren’t able to live, but it’s still sad to see. I always have a few that die after the first couple days. I’m thinking some of them fail to thrive after absorbing their yolk sac. The rest have been getting more active, zipping around the breeder and learning to come to the top for air.

I stopped by the pet store and picked up a 10 Gallon as a grow out tank, the rest of the supplies will be coming from Amazon. I also got some frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp for the adults and fry when they get older.

I’ve been a bit worried about my adult Cories nutrition so I bought HikarI Sinking Wafers as a new staple food to replace my generic bottom feeder pellets. My adults loved it, they went crazy for the stuff!

The babies have been getting HikarI First Bites, but it’s been so hard to see if they’ve eaten, as they don’t have a noticeable reaction. I decided to plop in some small leftover crumbs of the wafers in for them. Imagine my delight when I checked back up on them later and saw some of them chowing down! I think I’m going to have to grind up some wafers for them as a new main food source. So the wafers were a hit with everyone! Would definitely suggest it for Cory lovers!
I’ll end this out with an adorable picture of two fry hanging out together.

Spoiler: Let me tell you all about my best friendddd

View attachment 451151

Really! Sweet dogs! Can't believe that my journal made you start yours! Subscribed as of babies dying yes it is sad. I made a mistake a few days ago and lost around 30 fry! Now I haven't lost any. The most important parts are keeping up with feeding and water changes. Mine seem to love first bites, shrimp pellets, and brine shrimp eggs. It is sad to watch some die but think if how many you have left. Survive of the fitness sadly.

 

Alas I haven't seen it or them since I did the parent tank's water change. The fry are in a breeder plastic box also holding tiny java fern plantlets so I'm hoping they're hiding in the plants. Plus I sunk a tiny bit of betta flakes this morning and it's gone. So I hope it's OK. I scraped some bottom feeder pellet bits into the box just in case its ok

 

Alas I haven't seen it or them since I did the parent tank's water change. The fry are in a breeder plastic box also holding tiny java fern plantlets so I'm hoping they're hiding in the plants. Plus I sunk a tiny bit of betta flakes this morning and it's gone. So I hope it's OK. I scraped some bottom feeder pellet bits into the box just in case its ok

Some breeder boxes have holes where the fry can escape. Check for holes. As for flakes, I would suggest shrimp pellets because it has more of what a cories diet is based on.

 

Darn, they probably escaped and Dancer, the female betta probably ate them which explains why she's hanging out around the breeder box. Next time I'll put the eggs into the 5 gallon. I can set it up fast because it uses the same filter media as Midnight's tank, my male betta, and use tank water. Thanks all!

 

The babies are officially one week old! I set their birthdate as June 25th since that’s when the majority of them hatched. I got in all the supplies for their grow out tank. The sponge filter is currently in the 29 Gallon, getting seeded with good bacteria. Hopefully it’ll be ready to go soon, these guys are growing like weeds and won’t be able to stay in the breeder net much longer. They’ve probably tripled in size since they’ve hatched and there’s still about 40 of them. They’re starting to develop color on their bellies already!
My family has teasingly started to refer to me as Gramps, so here’s my Grandfish!

Spoiler: 1 Week

 

How are they

 

How are they

Growing like weeds, that’s how they’re doing! Some are starting to develop a bit of coloration, it looks like I have mostly Peppered Cory fry but it’s hard to tell. Wouldn’t surprise me. Even though I only saved eggs from the first batch, the Peppered Cories have been breeding almost every day for 2 weeks now, and viable eggs keep popping up on all my plants! Meanwhile my Bronze Cories lost interest in spawning after a few days.

I’ve also got the fry tank set up and ready to go! I’ve decided to add them in groups instead of all at once. The first group will be going in tomorrow, so I’ll post a big update with plenty of pictures then!

 

Hahahaha! Seems like you have many females then because each female can lay up to 100 eggs. Then it takes another month before it starts again

 

Hahahaha! Seems like you have many females then because each female can lay up to 100 eggs. Then it takes another month before it starts again

I’ve got 3 females and 1 male with both groups. (I’ll be keeping some babies so that I’ll have properly sized schools.)
It does make sense though. Bronze Cories seem to lay way more eggs in a short timespan, while Peppereds seem to spread it out more. Honestly I’m mostly impressed that LevI (male Peppered) has been going strong for all this time! Now if only he was equally good at paying child support for his dozens of kids...

 

So the the first fry moved yesterday! Here’s their new crib!

Spoiler: On this episode of MTV Cribs

Ok, so it’s not the most elaborate setup, but it works! It’s actually set up right on the side of the main fish tank, which makes matinence much easier. I decided to go without substrate to make cleaning easier. I know that bacteria can build up, but I think it will be just fine as long as I keep up with regular cleaning.

I was so nervous about transferring them, I made sure all the water parameters and the temperature were the same. Then I used a measuring cup to carefully catch fry from the breeder. (Not easy!) I decided to go with 10. I poured them all in my trusty plastic container, which I think held lunchmeat in a past life.

Spoiler: Floating in the tank!

I floated them and slowly added water from the tank. Once the container was full, I let it sink slowly to let the fry leave at their own pace. I thought that the stress would be too much and I’d loose some of them, or that they’d be terrified and all hide. But nope! They went off, exploring their new tank and poking around for food.

Spoiler: Hey, this place is pretty sweet!

The sponge filter made quite the mess when I moved it over, so I did a water change before I went to bed using some spare airline tubing to suck up all the gunk. I also fed them, and they had no trouble finding their food! Everyone seems to have done well through the night, so with that success I will be moving a second batch in today! I couldn’t be happier with how they’ve done!

 

Awweeeeeeeee! So cute! When I transferred mine over I was so worried about them not finding the food lol.

 

Awweeeeeeeee! So cute! When I transferred mine over I was so worried about them not finding the food lol.

I was worried too, but when I put the food in they could definitely sense it, they all swam around poking at the ground as Cories do. I’ve also noticed them pecking at the sponge filter, so I’m guessing they eat some of the stuff that grows on there.

I put 10 more babies in just now, they’re doing well! An interesting side note though. A little while back I saved 3 eggs because they were very dark and looked like they were about to hatch. But to my surprise, they took a few more days. I couldn’t really tell the fry apart from the older ones, so I kinda forgot about it. But then I started to notice 3 smaller fry that were incredibly dark. I was finally able to get a decent picture of one while I was catching fry.

Spoiler: Mystery Fry

You can see how much darker it is compared to the older fry on the right. It’s not a trick of lighting, even when they’re right next to other fry there’s still a very noticeable difference. I believe almost all the fry are Peppered, so it’s not a species difference either. It could be that these 3 have a different mother than all the others, since I have 3 females. It’s just interesting how dark they are, especially considering that they’re about a week younger than the rest. Regardless, I’m very excited to see how they grow up!

 

All the babies are in the tank! I actually finished moving them on Friday, but didn’t have time to update on Saturday. It gave me the opportunity to do an accurate headcount, so I now know that at the time of writing this, I have 54 fry. Counting the ones who have not made it the original spawn was 62 babies.

Then there’s also the 3 oddballs from the later spawn. I was worried one of those 3 wouldn’t make it, as it looked like he couldn’t stay on the bottom. Every time he rested, he would slowly float to the top then swim back to the bottom after a while. I put him in a spare breeder box in the fry tank, but he seemed to be back to normal on Saturday morning so I put him back with his friends.
I got some really good pictures of them during the move, take a look!

Spoiler: Oddballs

You can see how they have white markings that almost look like eyes, as well as some white by their mouths. I really hope this is something they carry into adulthood, instead of being a coloration that they loose as they grow.

I also put some frozen brine shrimp in for them, I thought they would like it considering how much I’ve heard about fry adoring baby brine shrimp. They had no interest.
So that left me with a dirty, smelly tank. A substantial water change was needed. I used airline tubing and was incredibly careful, but I still managed to suck up 3 fry. Luckily they seemed to be no worse for wear from their roller coaster ride.
Maybe I’ll try some chopped frozen bloodworms once they get a bit older. Picky kids...

 

Yup...picky eaters

 

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, there hasn't been much to update on! But it would be silly of me not to update on their 1 month birthday! They've slowed down in their growth, but they are going steady. The biggest ones are about half an inch. They really look like minI Cories now! (My mother thinks they look like tiny sharks.)
I took a video of them when I took everything out the tank for cleaning. Most of the stuff you see on the bottom is sand that came out of the Marimo Moss Balls I added to the tank. Also one of them was really interested in what I was doing, silly thing!