Journal - 29G Black Schultzei Corydoras Breeding Project

[Levi_Aquatics]

I just caught up for the second time. Congrats on all the fry and your success in raising them! I have always thought it would be fun to buy a group of corydoras and breed up a herd of them, and this just makes me want to do it more! I also appreciate that you share the lows of your journey as well!

[nabokovfan87]

Things to do today:

1.  Calm the pups down and make sure they have a serene atmosphere while I work.
2.  Pull the wood and rock from the tank
3.  Pull the moss that is randomly scattered around in everything
4.  Stare at the clown pleco for a moment to see how it's doing
5.  Set up the moss station and try not to get moss fingers
6.  Cut all the moss to the appropriate size and then get it setup for placement.
7.  Use the toothbrush to remove all the algae I can (hopefully this actually does something)
8.  Rinse everything that was brushed to remove any potential algae / contamination
9.  Glue a crap ton of moss to things
10.  Figure out how to scape and make it look nice
11.  Reglue all the anubias and stuff I knocked off
12.  Put the wood and rock back in the tank, scoop out what fell off to reglue that to the wood in the other tank.
13.  Repeat that for the other tank.

I'll update this with photos and progress.... I had to roll my eyes.  I found BBA on the underside of a suction cup on the CO2 diffuser because that's how stupid this stuff is.  😩

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/13/2023 at 3:02 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

1.  Calm the pups down and make sure they have a serene atmosphere while I work.

Zoey has had some anxiety today, thankfully they had a nice time while I was doing all this.  I got them laid down, proceeded to move, and they immediately ran to follow me. 😂

On 1/13/2023 at 3:02 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

2.  Pull the wood and rock from the tank
3.  Pull the moss that is randomly scattered around in everything

Somehow the algae decided to grow here. See below, perfectly fine, but this one.... NOPE.


Trying to show some more BBA.





These I wanted to show off how strewn with moss and rhizome plants were knocked around.  I could see myself going through far too much superglue if I had this as a job or was doing a bigger tank.



Terribly blown out photo.  My apologies.  This is before.  Kind of looks like someone took the clippers and there's a lot of spots. That branch in the middle was that segment I had re-glued 2 weeks ago.


Here is everything empty.  Gives you an idea of how much this tank relies on moss to be considered a "planted tank."

On 1/13/2023 at 3:02 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

4.  Stare at the clown pleco for a moment to see how it's doing

On 1/13/2023 at 3:02 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

5.  Set up the moss station and try not to get moss fingers

Each one of these rings is one tube of glue I went through.  Some sections were definitely lacking in moss, but I do need to get a headlamp or something next time I do this.  Or a pair of helping hands.  On dark wood you can miss out on some of the stuff you just laid down.  Wearing black gloves, it does stick (which is why I usually end up with moss hands) and it's a bit harder to "feel" when things aren't squished in all the way.  One of those things where the dry start method with moss makes things a lot easier.  Wood soaked for this long has a pretty fragile exterior.  I am hoping this time the moss is able to hold on a lot better.  It'll grow. We'll see a bunch of bright green on the next couple of updates.

Edit: just a sidenote. If you buy the "super glue gel" compared to the Flourish glue just know that it's literally half the size. 0.7g per tube.  One pack of the flourish stuff is equivalent to 2 of the super glue branded stuff. Smaller size because you typically want to use one tube at one instance to minimize waste and loss.  So yeah, I used a ton, but these are also very small tubes.

If I had to guess, one tube could glue an area of moss about 2" x 2" without much hassle. Going a little thin you could probably get it up to the size of a playing card.

On 1/13/2023 at 3:02 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

7.  Use the toothbrush to remove all the algae I can (hopefully this actually does something)

This seemed to be half decent.  It worked, but then I went to rinse things off and it was still there.  Yet again, I need an extra pair of hands to get some light and to have the rock submerged.  I think those two things will really help with that removal technique.  Works well on wood / rock as in.... it works to remove stuff.  We will see if it really matters long term.

On 1/13/2023 at 3:02 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

9.  Glue a crap ton of moss to things
10.  Figure out how to scape and make it look nice
11.  Reglue all the anubias and stuff I knocked off
12.  Put the wood and rock back in the tank, scoop out what fell off to reglue that to the wood in the other tank.

After:

On 1/13/2023 at 3:02 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

13.  Repeat that for the other tank.

Edited January 14, 2023 by nabokovfan87
added note about glue

[gjcarew]

Wow, you really slathered your hardscape with super glue. Do you ever try to get it off or do you just get new hardscape? The white patches drive me crazy, so I pick at it with a screwdriver

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 1/13/2023 at 10:13 PM, gjcarew said:

The white patches drive me crazy, so I pick at it with a screwdriver

It is less noticeable once the moss grows.

On 1/13/2023 at 9:23 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

which is why I usually end up with moss hands

What Cory does is use the cap of the superglue to press the plant to the object. Hence, no glue on hands.

The project came out nicely, and the pups look so cozy in their blankets.

Edited January 14, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/13/2023 at 7:13 PM, gjcarew said:

Wow, you really slathered your hardscape with super glue. Do you ever try to get it off or do you just get new hardscape? The white patches drive me crazy, so I pick at it with a screwdriver

I definitely pull it off.  If I go back in there in a week and I still see it, then I'll pull off anything I can see. Once it cures you can just chip it off.  As mentioned too, slimy rotten soggy wood, it barely sticks.  Camera makes it look bad, but you really, really don't see it until you put the wood into the tank and it's like a neon sign turning on.  I used 5-6 tubes just on the rock, I used ~3 on the wood.  We'll see how it holds up.  It's a very, very high flow tank and I have issues when it gets longer. 

I will plan on getting some moss thread and using that for future projects.  Right now, this is probably going to grow out and not be touched for nearly a year.  I need to get it secure enough so I can actually just trim it!  It's been getting so bushy that whenever I think about touching it I pull off a big chunk.  😞
 

On 1/13/2023 at 7:53 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

It is less noticeable once the moss grows.

Yep!  Hopefully it's all gone by morning 😂

[itsfoxtail]

On 1/11/2023 at 10:50 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I definitely want to keep 25+ of them.  We will see how many I have.  I would like to get a good series of them in the 75 whenever time and space makes sense. You'd think that's a lot, but definitely can handle 50 I think.  I think in terms of fry, there's 15-20.  I did count, but can't remember at all what there was.  I've lost 2 from that point. 😞   I also found some in the tank, so maybe that makes up for it.

So basically you're assembling a cory army?! Oh I cannot wait for this. Please, please do a giant cory tank, my eyeballs need to see such a wonderous thing! I wonder if they school all together in those numbers. Would be a sight to behold. 

On 1/11/2023 at 10:50 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I guess I hesitated to trust them! I do see them go around the tank, sometimes they clean, sometimes they don't.  The tank in question has a ridiculous BBA/Staghorn algae issue and it's not been fun.  The eggs have issues being too close to the light and the algae everywhere, which the amanos refuse to help with some weeks.

I feel like they're petulant little children sometimes and refuse to do their job simply because they want to remind you they have free-will and algae-eating union rights and are actually the ones in charge. 

On 1/13/2023 at 5:02 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

4.  Stare at the clown pleco for a moment to see how it's doing
5.  Set up the moss station and try not to get moss fingers

These made me laugh, and then sigh because it's very, very accurate.

The moss-takeover is looking good! That first piece of wood is stunning; it'll look like something straight out of a dream once the moss grows in! 😍

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/13/2023 at 10:13 PM, itsfoxtail said:

So basically you're assembling a cory army?! Oh I cannot wait for this. Please, please do a giant cory tank, my eyeballs need to see such a wonderous thing! I wonder if they school all together in those numbers. Would be a sight to behold. 

Good I'm not the only one!  Check this out..... Doing some research for another thread and LOOK AT ALL OF THEM.....

Video a page or two back of some random tank and it had 50-80 black corydoras schooling. Talk about a fun time.

On 1/13/2023 at 10:13 PM, itsfoxtail said:

The moss-takeover is looking good! That first piece of wood is stunning; it'll look like something straight out of a dream once the moss grows in! 😍

I am loving whatever this moss is. Taiwan moss I think. Just a really unique pattern and giant tendrils when it gets going. I started with one portion. Even throwing heaps away I think I'm up to about.... 10x that amount.

I believe this is what it is:

Edited January 14, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[nabokovfan87]

The fry that grew up in the tank next to one that didn't. Same age.

Tried to get another shot but only got the larger one in the light.

Some of the females and males it's already apparent which is which just based on size.

Males are about an inch, females are slightly over almost 1.25"

The bigger one is probably pushing 1.75" right now.

Edited January 14, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[nabokovfan87]

Last update for the day.

I appreciate this S. Repens for being very fun to stare at. Growing wide and tall it's a unique perspective to see the plant and the different leaf sizes at each tier.

Curse that algae though. 😩

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Supposedly in the wild, cories live in massive schools and when the school moves it’s like watching water ripple. I believe I heard that on the ACO podcast.

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 1/14/2023 at 12:26 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Supposedly in the wild, cories live in massive schools and when the school moves it’s like watching water ripple. I believe I heard that on the ACO podcast.

I follow a YouTube channel called ‘Below Water’ which films aquarium fish underwater; really quite interesting! 

[nabokovfan87]

I went ahead and did the usual maintenance on the tank today.  CURSE THE REFS for that blown call in the dolphins game, or the bunch of them.  UGH.  The time to breathe was much needed.  I walked into the room to get things going and heard the filter acting up.  Upon video review I can actually see bubbles releasing to the surface, extremely weird, and now I know to look for them next time around.  I literally hogged out the end of the intake tube, but somehow this thing found a way to trap some air.  Maybe all that moss trimming clocked the intake?  Who knows...  I'll check it before bed, hopefully back to silent and all is good.

The corydoras are growing really well.  I seriously see what looks like 3 week old fry and if you've been following the timeline that's got to be spawn number 4.  It's very likely some holdovers from spawn number 3 (the one that was 2 weeks after the big one this winter) and maybe that is some of those fry that jumped out of the box and down the intake tube.

Siphoning is difficult when the corydoras are dark grey on the dark grey substrate, but I can't help but just be in awe when I see them in there.  I try to find the original group of 5 and compare those sizes to the fry, but man they are getting big and it's hard to tell on some of them.  All wonderful signs.   I did a bit of a rescape after the moss work, which just means that the big seiryu cave is wider and has a little bit more clearance there for the herd/horde to sit under cover and get away from the flow.  A lot of the food tends to get pushed to that side of the tank because of the spraybar which goes right into the S. Repens and into that cave.   They like to sit there and get their food, the smallest fry hang out in the S. Repens and get their food that way.  I'm going to end up grabbing some new foods here shortly, but more on that after we figure out if secret project stuff is successful or not.

Parts ordered, items on the way, I need to refill my backup CO2 tank and probably dial things up at that point.  I am noticing the algae take hold again.  Let's talk through it...
A. Lights have been cut.
B. Dosing has been constant and I've added slight bit of iron due to the issues of PH climbing and low Iron.  Some anubias showing some deficiencies and it's hard to pin down which it is because I'm not an expert.  A slight amount of iron won't hurt much and I have it on hand.
C.  S. Repens in spots is showing pinholes and the old growth is getting covered in the algae. 
D.  The moss was cut, so growth is slightly slow for a week or so.
E.  The concept of using the toothbrush to clean the algae.  I give it an F after seeing the tank and the lights. It doesn't work well.
F.   It is difficult to decide how to prune+propogate out some plants because of this algae.  Do I trust the corydoras not to uproot everything.... or do I simply try to get a bit taller stalks so I can plant them a little bit deeper when I do trim them.
G.  I am back to the point of "going full circle" where I was a few months ago and not sure if I need to increase light / dosing and push the plants to grow, or if I need to cut something to choke out the algae again.  My gut tells me one thing, but I know the algae will also bloom and take off.

I will probably just end up making an appropriate thread with the photos needing to ID things.  I don't have the means to test very specific chemistry items, but it's clear something is still dramatically off.  I have been running the current settings for long enough to know that it's time to change things.  In the past month alone I've seen that BBA just climb.  Very likely due to nitrates due to feeding due to fry.  Maybe a few extra WCs will clean it up and I'll start there.  I want to see the growth on the moss, Hygro, add some plants in, but that takes time.  There also might be some dividends of secret project, but I would need to setup the 75 to go that route and then setup a tank at a business site for that to be feasible.

Just have to think it over and decide the root cause and the best path forward.  I'm extremely excited to see where the tank goes in the next 2-3 months.  Genuinely, I do feel like it's the setup I've wanted to have, the QTY of fish I've wanted to have, and it all leads to the ability to sit and enjoy the tank a lot more.  As I've been trying to, I do still have to get these quirks hammered out, but it is a vast improvement from when things first went to chaos in this setup. (those photos in the first post)

Sidenote, no testing this week.  The tank is happy, doing well, and again, I'm considering changing a lot more water than normal just to try to get parameters down to nothing (and replace food waste with plant dosing chemicals).

Edited January 16, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 1/14/2023 at 6:26 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Supposedly in the wild, cories live in massive schools and when the school moves it’s like watching water ripple. I believe I heard that on the ACO podcast.

 

[nabokovfan87]

Take a 12" tall tank. 8 foot long, 4 foot deep.  Manzanita, stone, moss on the rocks and wood sticking out of the surface. Maybe a waterfall on one end that scapes down into a pool of high flow and a "gentle river" follows for the rest of the tank down into the sump.

Corydoras, shrimp, nano fish, just a very nice "indoor pond".

Yes please. (Still some design issues to figure out, but it would be pretty majestic)

One day....

Edit:

Test results from Wednesday testing extravaganza

Black Corydoras Tank:
Temp: 71.6
Phosphate: 3.0 ppm
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 5-15 ppm (Difficult to read!)
PH: 7.0
KH: 60
GH: 150

Edited January 19, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[nabokovfan87]

I'll update this a little later after maintenance.

Checking on the fish this morning and saw some fun stuff.

Amazon and Corydoras checking out the moss on the rock.

This photo has 4 amano shrimp in them and they all are about as big as you'll see them.

Still waiting for the moss to grow, some signs of growth but it is a slow process.

 

[nabokovfan87]

Update.... Light is a little blown out, my apologies about that.


I spent the afternoon doing a bit of aquascaping for once.  I trimmed off the tops of the Staurogyne Repens and went ahead and propagated that out a little bit.

Before:
You can see it in the photo above, but there is 2-3 small plants on the front right of the tank that I've gone ahead and tried to expand the S.Repens across the front of the tank.  In the back you can see a few shown below as well, they are rooted and doing their thing.  I tried to replant them just because the big corydoras do eat food back there and hide from the front of the tank.


After:

From above, you can see the brown discolorations where the base of the stems were getting choked out.  The AMAZING thing this time around compared to the last time, almost no issues with BBA this time.  I did not pull leaves because of algae, they were pulled because they were buried in the substrate or were just deficient and needed to be removed.  What a nice change to have normal plant maintenance tasks again!

I added a little bit more to the dead spots, added some to the bottom left corner in the photo below as well as a little bit further outward to encourage propagation.  I added root tabs as well for the hygro and for those places where these new plants would be going.

I'm happy with it.  I hope they can root in and the fish don't thrash around too much while they do so.

The moss replant is on way as well.  There is new growth and it is doing it's thing.  I hope in about 2-3 months I can look back and see this big mass of moss doing really well and a bit better coverage of other plants.   I am keeping an eye on the anubias, lost one, but the others seem to be responding well to dosing in iron now.  Especially in my other tank, the anubias is actually showing some signs of life, thankfully.

In other news....

My last water test shows a GH of ~50 ppm.  I would have to look back on the timeline, but the rain we've had here recently has taken the GH that dropped down from ~400 (which was already down to 150) and shot it way down yet again.  It's really hard on the shrimp to see some of these changes and so I've been trying to keep an eye on them, their behavior, and signs of stress from those issues.

If I had to guess, about 4 months ago I was at 400 ppm for GH, then down to 250-300, then 150 around the end of November.  Now we're down to 50.  Just really makes it difficult and I am hoping I don't need to add in some form of GH minerals as well. 

Edit: Yeah, end of november testing the tank was at ~200-300 GH which is my code for 250 or so, water changes from the tap were with lower GH water which in turn reduced it further.  Last time water from the tap was "normal" was..... end of October up towards middle of November.  Last clean test was when they first spawned, November 18th.

Edited January 28, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/30/2022 at 7:58 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

This was the last S.Repens trim and cleanout.  Night and day difference....

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

The plants look great!  Some people say their cories uproot everything, but yours seems to be ok with the plants. Stinks about the swings in gH. I’m surprised rain affects that? You’re using all tap water right?

Edited January 28, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/28/2023 at 4:23 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I’m surprised rain affects that? You’re using all tap water right?

Yeah, nothing special.  Water at this location is much more inconsistent that the last house and I'm not sure why. Between the previous KH drops, now GH, it's not easy to say something like algae or plant deficiencies is my fault or something that I can retain.

I do need to commit to another off gas test and repeat that monthly at thos point. I did one in December just to have a sanity check. Yep, it's dropping.

I also switched from the outside hose of freezing water to the sink, now that we have one, and was assuming that some of the changes were due to the water heater. I tested both taps, same water results. I'll repeat that here shortly.

I watched this last night, very interesting conversation about planted tank water needs and dosing schedules. Ultimately one thing I do want to take from this video and keep in my setup is the KH < GH rule and that's simply because it makes sense. You do have plants taking up nutrients and GH is one of those things plants do affect. I have seiryu in the tank for that reason, have one more ugly piece I can add, but will likely need to get more if this keeps dropping.

I have also ran tests on rain water just to see. Everything was the same as my tap (high GH, mid KH, and very low PH).

The volume of water we've had has been pretty drastic and it's cleaned out whatever on the water treatment side resulting in changes. The real question is how long will that last, what happens when we get to end of February... What do parameters look like then.

On 1/28/2023 at 4:23 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Some people say their cories uproot everything, but yours seems to be ok with the plants.

Oh we had a fun time trying to replant last night. They definitely moved some around.

[nabokovfan87]

From yesterday morning.... Just checking on things.

I am trying to figure out this food, definitely overfeeding right now and it sinks really quickly. The fish enjoy it, much moreso than literally the same food in wafer form. Interesting result there.

First tank is Riddick in his QT, then the pandas, then the black corydoras.

 

I'll amend this a bit later tonight with water test results and go ahead and do my normal maintenance when I can this afternoon.

Fish have definitely been feisty, just meaning that they have tossed a lot of plants I tried to replant. I am leaning towards leaving them floating so they can root out a little bit, but my hope is that I can continue to replant and get them to stay in the substrate. I did try to give the trimmings a bit of a stock, but this is unfortunate just the issue I have been having with this substrate and trying to work with it. Works fine, just not when I have to mess with it.

When I check on everything today I don't see 20+ floating clippings. 😂

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Plant weights. 🙂 

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/29/2023 at 2:47 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Plant weights. 🙂 

I mean, yeah... and I do have some!

I need like a micro/nano level one for the sake of fitting.  I can lay it on top of the plants for some, but the fish would move those or get scratched.  It's a puzzle.... 😞

To give you an idea, the trimmings are about the diameter of angel hair pasta or slightly bigger.  Not quite in a state where I can tie them.  They are about 1/2" up to 1" long, which means the actual stem itself where I've removed the leaves is about 1/4-1/2" in section.  Some have none and those pop very easily.  I've had one floating in the panda tank, not enough light, not enough stem, It's been there for months and hasn't really grown at all.  The majority of that is due to being a very different environment. and setup.

 

Edited January 30, 2023 by nabokovfan87
added photo

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 1/29/2023 at 9:16 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I mean, yeah... and I do have some!

I need like a micro/nano level one for the sake of fitting.  I can lay it on top of the plants for some, but the fish would move those or get scratched.  It's a puzzle.... 😞

To give you an idea, the trimmings are about the diameter of angel hair pasta or slightly bigger.  Not quite in a state where I can tie them.  They are about 1/2" up to 1" long, which means the actual stem itself where I've removed the leaves is about 1/4-1/2" in section.  Some have none and those pop very easily.  I've had one floating in the panda tank, not enough light, not enough stem, It's been there for months and hasn't really grown at all.  The majority of that is due to being a very different environment. and setup.

 

I used to have thin ones years ago. They looked like mini rebar.  Not sure if/where they are still available.

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/30/2023 at 8:31 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I used to have thin ones years ago. They looked like mini rebar.  Not sure if/where they are still available.

Maybe I can loop some in some pipe or fishing line and use the weight that way. Bury the edges.