My Bronze Cories Have Too Many Babies

Hello! I have joined this forum to ask about my corydoras catfish. They are happy - so happy that they breed nearly every time I change the water. I see many posts about how to make your cories breed, but mine breed all the time and I don't want them to overpopulate and get sick. I want them happy and healthy but not breeding all the time.

Roughly nine years ago I was gifted a pair of bronze corydoras, along with a few other fish and a tank. During the time I had a community tank with lots of species (2008-2011-ish was when I was seriously keeping it up) the cories spawned one time and I never saw any babies. A year or so ago when they were nearly alone aside from one last tetra and a pleco, they spawned again and one baby survived.

The fish have taken to spawning nearly every time I change the water (I try to regulate the temperature so that they don't spawn because of a sudden cool temperature, but to no avail...). Usually I never see the babies but this fall I had two spawns in a row produce one offspring each, and today I think I just saw a tiny, translucent, perhaps two or three day old baby fish. Why are my fish suddenly this...productive, when they're almost a decade old?

I love these fish. If I had room I would want them to have babies all the time because they're adorable, but I don't have much room. I can make more room in the tank by giving away an aggressive bristlenose pleco that I keep partitioned in half of the tank, and that will help a lot, but there'll come a point when there are too many fish for a 10-gallon tank.

What's more is that when I find babies, they are often on the pleco's side of the tank. Do baby cories tunnel through gravel? Could they be dying under the gravel and I'll have a huge mess someday?

What do you guys do to keep your cories' lives happy and yummy and pleasurable without them overpopulating?

 

I think I once read that "wigglers" after get lodged in or fall through cracks in gravel
(and then obviously don't make it).

 

I have albino corydoras and they are the same - constantly spawning. I get eggs every week. But I've never had a fry survive.

I don't think there's a way to stop fish breeding without making them so unhappy that they don't want to. You could try looking out for eggs and removing them from the tank before they hatch. Mine are usually pretty obvious.

Do you have a LFS that would take them as a donation? Otherwise advertise them locally, I was surprised how many people wanted my (very ordinary) fish when I had to rehome them, I was able to pick and choose the best home. As you've only had 3 survivors so far, it shouldn't be too hard to get them rehomed (compared to say livebearers dropping 30 fry a month).

 

Each time you see eggs, just scrape them off the glass. The other fish will eat the eggs and they won’t survive.

My albinos spawn every time I do a water change also. I purposely removed eggs twice to a QT,and let them hatch. I went from 6 to 11. I don’t want anymore, so I do what I can to get rid of the eggs.

Even when I would QT the eggs and get wigglers, they wouldn’t all survive. One spawning I got 3 survivors and the next 2. But total I had over 20 hatch. So your little ones you saw, may not survive. So don’t be surprised.

 

Thank you everybody! I think I would look into rehoming extra fish before I would scrape the eggs because that would make my heart hurt. I don't want to kill anything!

 

Thank you everybody! I think I would look into rehoming extra fish before I would scrape the eggs because that would make my heart hurt. I don't want to kill anything!

Sometimes you have to make tough decisions. I mean if you don’t have enough space for them, are you willing to get more tanks? You may not be able to find a place for the babies. 99% of my eggs get eaten before I even get to them. The cories act like they are candy. Eat their own eggs. So I don’t worry too much about it. I haven’t seen any fry at all in the big tank.

 

My aeneus mostly eat their own eggs in some days. Only in one tank I had 4 spontanious raised fry. Bred them some times but can't get rid of the fry. Gave away 14 awau for free last week to make room for other species.

 

Yeah usually mine will eat their own eggs. I've had just three babies survive so far and they are very cute...since there are five now in the 10-gallon I would like to make the tank just for them and make them happy.