No chance for cory fry

I've had corys in my tank for 8 months now and while I would see an occasional cluster of eggs on the glass, it's just only a small group of eggs smeared on the glass and not the few dozen that I see from other members' posts here. I assume what was left of those eggs are being eaten by other fish.

But over the past couple of months, I haven't seen any eggs at all even though I see them spawning. And this morning, I found out why. I was looking at my tank from across the room and saw my corys spawning around the leaves of a crypt and what looked like my pearl gouramis attacking them. I was shocked because my pearls are extremely peaceful. As I looked closer, the corys were indeed laying eggs but the pearls were right there to catch and eat them as soon as the eggs leave their bodies!

I guess the pearls have caught on to the free meal they were going to get anytime they see the corys swimming like crazy around the crypt! Those eggs don't stand a chance now and certainly no hope for any cory fry.

 

My black neons shadow the adolfoi very closely when they spawn & eat the eggs as soon as they're laid, good job I have a large enough group of them & don't need to increase the cory numbers in that tank.
If you really want to breed the corys then you could move a couple of males & a female to a small tank for them to spawn, a 10 gallon would do as a spawning tank, & once they've spawned move the parents back to the main tank.

 

I never intentionally thought of breeding them and figured if some of the eggs hatch on their own, I would be happy. But now that I see the pearls and other fish (including the corys themselves) don't leave a single egg behind, I'm a little sad about it.

If I get another tank in the future, I will certainly breed them. Thanks for the advice, Coradee

 

OH and I just remembered now why my pearls would have white stuff on their mouths every now and then. I thought at first they caught a disease or fungus but it would disappear the next day. And I guess those eggs are pretty sticky because my female pearl keeps opening her mouth like she's got a wad of gum stuck in her mouth. LOL

 

My cories are in a community tank with a bunch of different tetras..they treat the cories like vending machines, eating the eggs as they land. 4 fry made it in the long run out of the hundreds of eggs ive seen. I really notice them spawing after water changes which seems to be common, especially when adding slightly colder water into the tank.

 

My cories are in a community tank with a bunch of different tetras..they treat the cories like vending machines, eating the eggs as they land. 4 fry made it in the long run out of the hundreds of eggs ive seen. I really notice them spawing after water changes which seems to be common, especially when adding slightly colder water into the tank.

I think I'm just going to see if any fry survive naturally.
I don't notice a specific pattern when mine spawn. Water change day is tomorrow and they spawned today.

 

My most prolific female cory was looking very uncomfortable yesterday. She looked like she was about to burst since she was full of eggs. My tank was ready for a top off so I added about a gallon of water much cooler than normal. I tried to make it seem like rain water. She started laying eggs within an hour after I added the cold water. She is much slimmer now and all my fish ended up with an extra treat. She was plastering eggs all over everything. I scraped them off the glass but made them all work for the ones on the plants. She was even eating them

 

My most prolific female cory was looking very uncomfortable yesterday. She looked like she was about to burst since she was full of eggs. My tank was ready for a top off so I added about a gallon of water much cooler than normal. I tried to make it seem like rain water. She started laying eggs within an hour after I added the cold water. She is much slimmer now and all my fish ended up with an extra treat. She was plastering eggs all over everything. I scraped them off the glass but made them all work for the ones on the plants. She was even eating them

Funny how she wouldn't just release the eggs if she was that uncomfortable.

 

Funny how she wouldn't just release the eggs if she was that uncomfortable.

I agree. It seems like she is constantly laying eggs but normally it is just a few at a time. This time she really got busy and plastered them everywhere I can only assume that it was the artificial rain drops that got her going.