Corydoras Spawning media experiment

[Guppysnail]

On 6/11/2022 at 8:04 PM, KentFishFanUK said:

How many filters do you have 😂) 

Minimum of 3 types per tank. Alway 1 operating on battery back up in case of power outage either sponge or ugf.  Some tanks with spare sponges have 3 plus 2 sponges. Redundancies saved my but many times (like when I forget to turn one or two back on OFTEN 🤣). I also find fish to be more active and spawn more often with total overkill on filtration. I put the UGFs in for my plants to get better growth. 
 

also the few panda eggs I found on glass that were eaten when they were in the guppy tank left distinct circular marks I could easily see where they were. 

Edited June 12, 2022 by Guppysnail

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/11/2022 at 2:27 PM, Guppysnail said:

possibly the hair algae is protection from the flow? But flow itself inductee good lay time because in the wild it would mean higher O2 levels and less toxins?  Total guess but wanted to throw it out there. Hard to see them but I had about 15-20 scattered on the front glass. 

I found an interesting tidbit when Cory was doing a tour.  I'll have to find it, but it's very relevant to the conversation.  The concept of having what the fry need (cover) as a spawn trigger.
 

Secondly, I re-found these.  From my last spawn on the black corys.  I had all sides of the glass with clusters like this, an amazing spawn.  It was also on floating anubias and some other spots but no photos amongst the excitement were captured.  The floating anubias was standard size, as well as nangi and coffeefolia varities.

These were the glass opposite the HoB flow. 

EDIT:  On the living room panda horde, I'm seeing them continuously hanging out in the Anubias nana bush.  I think if it was bigger, they'd spawn in it, but I really am expecting to lift up one of these and see it there.

Main tank is full of algae yet again...  trying to get the plants to grow in and see where they lay.

Edited June 14, 2022 by nabokovfan87
I guess the photos disappeared, re-uploading

[Georgiapeach88]

On 6/6/2022 at 6:45 AM, KentFishFanUK said:

Keep us posted! 

I've not had any success past getting them to hatch either, except one - I pulled maybe 4 or 5 eggs a little while ago and wasn't sure what to do with them (my breeder box attempts were fails) so just chucked them into a 3 gallon tank that was quite established that I was mostly using to hold/grow out some plants (I don't like throwing trimmings away 😅) and didn't think any had made it but then randomly saw a super cute little fry in there a few days ago, probably half an inch long maybe slightly more and not really Cory shaped yet but does have the black band across its face already! Not sure what size it would be safe to add it back to my display tank with its parents though?

The eggs I pulled recently which have just hatched are in a plastic jug that I normally use for water changes haha but with some moss and a whole lot of infusoria so once I know they are all hatched I'm going to pour them into the plant tank and hopefully some will make it. Might have to reduce the bubbles on the sponge filter if they don't like flow. There also happens to be quite a lot of thread algae in there which I will remove a bit of but leave a bunch too. Fingers crossed!

I do have a vinegar eel culture which I've been using to feed ricefish fry that I will probably feed to the panda fry too as though the other fry survived off of the infusoria and aufwuch or whatever in such a small tank I'm not sure there would be enough to supply a dozen or so hatchlings. I like the VE because they should survive at least a week (possibly indefinitely if some reports are to be believed) in the tank so less chance of overfeeding and fouling the water. Only problem is the VE mostly seem to congregate at the surface so not sure how easily the fry will find them, hopefully there is just enough flow to keep them moving around in the rest of the water column.

 

Responding to size part of this. With my albino Corydora…I return them to the parent tank when they are 1/4inch or 1/2 inch long in size and they seem to do well. If I had bigger fish I’d wait till 1/2 inch size. 

[nabokovfan87]

Update for you.....

I have 4+ females spawning as we speak.

They still prefer the anubias, but to be fair it's still a gigantic ball of BBA / algae and it's very difficult for them to lay on the anubias because it's a small variety they are trying to lay in.  I also caught one laying on a rolled up seachem tidal media bag that's sitting on a sponge filter.  She did try to lay on the glass, opted not to, and went back to the anubias.

I don't know if I'll end up with fry, but there's a LOT of movement in the cory herd tonight.  That's what ya get for feeding vibra bites!

I apologize if the video is dark. I do keep this tank pretty dim because it receives artificial and ambient light most of the day. Hopefully the info is beneficial for your studies!
 

 

[BradfordAquatics]

How exciting! Watching cories spawn is always so much fun

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/7/2022 at 9:07 PM, BradfordAquatics said:

How exciting! Watching cories spawn is always so much fun

I felt bad, she was getting swarmed hard. They had already done the T and she was struggling to get away to lay the eggs without being followed.

Tonight, things are going again it looks like.

[nabokovfan87]

I had mine spawn.  I took a massive amount of photos to try to help with the thread. I had 2-3 females going at it for about 1.5 days laying eggs.  I'll dig them out and try to list some notes.  I wanted to check in though and ask about any news on this? @KentFishFanUK

[nabokovfan87]

These are kind of in order, but I did "catch them" spawning and then they proceeded to spawn for a full day.

I first had eggs on both corners of the tanks, along the wall towards the surface of the water (high flow) and then directly across from the HoB output slightly left / right was their other focus.  Not right where the flow hits the glass because it's probably too strong.



I started collecting eggs when they took a break.  Then they proceeded to find other sections and continue spawning.  They went from the front of the tank towards the back of the tank trying to "hide them" a bit better.  I think they were basically targeting hidden spots but they were the same distance from the filter output on either side of that filter.


Kind of difficult to show, but they were on the back glass as well as the underside (dark side) of the heater grill.


After that they went to a few other spots, again, more flow in the tank.  They did this MUCH later, but you can see the eggs on that curved piece of wood.  There's a little "channel" so to speak that made it really easy to deposit eggs.  It seems like position of the egg as much as ease of laying them there is a factor with that surface.

The CO2 had come on at this point, a bit more flow (I would assume somewhat) and the fish were heavily spawning in this specific corner of the tank.  You can see the CO2 on, there is a pumphead / spraybar directly opposite the right pane of glass.  That one corner probably had 50-60% of the entire spawn of eggs.  Because they had some difficulty with that amount, you can see the eggs fell into the substrate, which is when they started to go to other sections like the wood, heater grille, etc.


This rock / moss is designed for them to lay, they did use it.  I imagine the length of the moss played a factor here.  It could just as easily been eggs that fell and stuck to the moss, but they were leaving a dash of eggs here and there (wood, glass, moss)


You can see the residue from the eggs being pulled.  The would often come back to those same spots they "liked" when trying to lay.  The is that same front glass, left a few inches from the output of the filter.  You can see the pumphead in the back and spraybar that goes horizontally across the length of the tank as well.

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by nabokovfan87