Agasizzi corys vs paleatus corys

[KittenFishMom]

 

My 2 types of corys act so very differently. 

My 3 agasizzi corys that are in with my tint blue neon tetras and one very small cray fish are so skittish. The only time I see them is if I feed the tank and sit very still and wait.  Then they come from their hiding places and eat what has fallen to the bottom. If I move at all, they zip off to they hiding places, and I can not find them from above or from the sides.  I thought it was because they were adjusting to their new home. but it has been about 2 weeks and they are still hiding all the time.  There is lots of drift wood and hornwort in the tank, along with creek stones and scuds and algae on some of the stones. Thinking back on buying them, the sales person and I had a hard time finding their tank because they were all hiding behind the one decoration in the tank. Is this normal behavior for agasizzi corys? They are so pretty, I would love to see more of them.

On the other hand, my 3 paleatus corys are very busy, swimming all over the tank with the male betta and the little flag fish. When I only had one, he hid all the time, but now that I have added 2 more, (the same day I got the agasizzi corys) the tree of them are out and about all the time. They nibble on stuff next to the glass as I stand up and add a bit more food. I can put my nose close to the glass and they ignore me as I admire them up close. They seem so comfortable and confident. Nothing bothers them.   

The water in the agasizzi tank is about 80f, with no ammonia nitrates or nitrites. The betta tank is closer to 82. again no ammonia or nitrates or nitrites. I haven check the pH lately, but I can if you think it might explain the differences. I put the little crayfish in with the agasizzi that I caught when I was catching scuds about a week ago, and he molted his shell last night. when I think is a good sign that the tank is in good shape. the crayfish is about the size of the corys in length. 

Any idea way these corys act so differently?

[Colu]

Cory's do better when kept in large groups in the wild they move about in groups numbering in the thousands depending on the size of your tank I would get a couple more it will make them more out going 

[KittenFishMom]

@colu Thanks for explaining this.

I could buy more agasizzi, for their tank, or move the other corys to the agasizzi tank, but then I won't have a clean up crew for the betta. Also, I don't know if the agasizzi will think the paleatus cory belong in they school.

How many corys do you think I can have in a 10 gallon tank with 10 young neon tetra and a very small crayfish? This spring, I will move the native fish back to the 120 tank and will be able to move the tetras and the corys to the 55 gallon tank. I want the agasizzi to be healthy and comfortable in the 10 gallon tank until then.

[Colu]

Agassizi  are one of the bigger Cory's  I would maybe add two more 

[KittenFishMom]

@Colu Thanks.

I realize that as a newbie, I didn't realize the fish at the store were young and going to grow much bigger. I got the wrong combination of fish for the tanks I had. I am trying to sort it out and make it better.

[KittenFishMom]

Before I retired, the place that I worked had a saying:

"9 women, + 1 month = 1 baby"

It meant that when a project got behind schedule, management always want to add more people to get it back on schedule. Of course, bringing those people up to speed on the project often slowed things down even more and added more stress to the original people on the project that had asked for more staff at the beginning of the project.

I made mistakes when "staffing" my tanks. I want to be very careful not to just add more fish and make things worse for all the "staff"/fish involved. 

[Colu]

You have a couple of options leave things as they are they might need more time to settle in or add a couple more to the existing 10 or get a bigger tank if you have space

[drewzero1]

Not sure if it helps, but here's my experience with different species of corys. I also have two species and their behavior has been night and day between the two. I started with a small school of bronze cories, who all became extremely skittish when I moved them to a new tank. They dash for cover when they see me coming (never did that before). I think I might have traumatized them by catching and moving them.

As I've lost bronze cories over time I've been adding in paleatus corys to try to keep a school, though I don't think it's working; the two species don't seem to interact or stick together. The paleatus have been as playful and outgoing as the bronze cories used to be before the move. My eventual plan is to end up with just one school of about 6, just paleatus cories.

A 10 gallon is pretty small for any non-pygmy cories. I'd suggest overwintering just the ones you have in there (if they'll fit all right) and waiting until spring to add any more. I haven't noticed much difference in behavior between a group of 4 vs. a group of 3. I think the group size is big enough for the short term and I wouldn't want to increase that number at all for a 10g. Just be careful not to scare them too much when moving them... I'm not sure exactly what I did, but it probably didn't help that I had a really hard time catching them.