My Emerald Green Cories attached eggs all over my aquarium again.

[Pepere]

The last batch appeared to all hatch.  I saw tiny fry moving in the eggs, but never saw any fry swimming about.

 

i bought a Ziss breeder box from the Co op.

I have transferred about 2 dozen eggs into it.  We will see if they do any better this way….

Edited December 18, 2022 by Pepere

[Flumpweesel]

Fingers crossed for you

[Pepere]

It would be nice to have 6 more for a cleanup crew to my second 29 gallon display tank.

I am currently adding fish to that tank in stages.

[nabokovfan87]

Aw yes..... Photos when you can!  I've never seen these ones grow up.  I am guessing you'll easily get 10-15!

[Pepere]

Well after all the activity of this morning my Cories are all laying quietly on the bottom of the tank in and amongst the plants…

 

plumb tuckered….

 

and well they should be.

 

I counted well over a hundred eggs in the breeder box.

 

 

Edited December 19, 2022 by Pepere

[Cinnebuns]

Do you know how to tell fertile from infertile eggs?  When you transfer the eggs to a box it's important to remove any infertile eggs or they may spread fungus and kill the fertile ones. I suggest using a turkey baster for the removal. 

[Pepere]

I know in theory…

 

its the practical that is a bear.

when the first batch were laid I would have guessed they were all infertile, but I figured I would wait and see.  2 days later I could see they were nearly all fertile and very few ended up not hatching from that batch.

[Pepere]

This morning I have Corydora fry swimming around the bottom of the breeder box.

They are incredibly tiny….  Hard to make out much with 57 year old eyes.  Using magnifing visor the focal point is greatly reduced so can only use lower power magnification..

In any event, plenty of eggs left to hatch and plenty of those are definitely fertile.  Removed a few white fuzzy eggs…

so, 48 hours till they start eating.  I have Hikari first bites on hand.  And eggs to hard boil and provide some egg yolk.  I also have Repashy powder…

 

and after a week, hatched baby brine shrimp.

 

and then rehome from breeder box to grow out tank at 2 weeks.

the remaining question revolves around how big do you want them before adding back to a community tank? In my case community tank has killifish,flag fish gourami, neons, 

and the time to get that size depends on how often you feed them, but at 2-3 times a day feeding, any rough estimate how long it takes to get long enough to put in a community tank?

[Pepere]

I dont have a turkey baster in my house for the fish, but I found a bit of airline tubing attached to the end of a 12 cc syringe works great at removing fuzzy eggs and detritus on the bottom of the breeder box.

 

I would empty in a small bowl and examined carefully for fry before dumping.

 

I found one fry that I returned to the breeder box the same way.

[Guppysnail]

On 12/21/2022 at 5:34 AM, Pepere said:

how big do you want them before adding back to a community tank?

They need to be to big to fit in any fishes mouth. 
this depends on how big the mouths of your other fish are. 
I do not return mine until they have fully developed and look like miniature versions with full coloring. 

[Huckleberry]

I never had any luck with my Cory's in a breeder box, they hatch out and then it's like they won't eat after they use up their yolk. I have not gotten into brine shrimp yet but do plan to.   I have an established 10 gallon planted tank that I put the eggs in now and they are growing and thriving. Best of luck. 

[Pepere]

On 12/21/2022 at 9:30 AM, Huckleberry said:

never had any luck with my Cory's in a breeder box, they hatch out and then it's like they won't eat after they use up their yolk.

Well the first batch hatched and I never saw any….  If these dont make it they will not have a worse fate than the prior batch…

 

 

I will have a 10 gallon quarantine tank freeing up in 8 more days….  

[nabokovfan87]

On 12/21/2022 at 2:34 AM, Pepere said:

the remaining question revolves around how big do you want them before adding back to a community tank? In my case community tank has killifish,flag fish gourami, neons, 

Just went through this on my end. I recommend waiting until 8-10 weeks. I released mine at 6-8.

In my situation they have a massive amount of cover and nothing in the tank to bother them.

On 12/21/2022 at 6:30 AM, Huckleberry said:

I never had any luck with my Cory's in a breeder box, they hatch out and then it's like they won't eat after they use up their yolk

Try having moss or something for cover for them and just use a pipette and repashy powder. It's great fry food.

[Pepere]

On 12/21/2022 at 9:30 AM, Huckleberry said:

never had any luck with my Cory's in a breeder box, they hatch out and then it's like they won't eat after they use up their yolk.

Well the first batch hatched and I never saw any….  If these dont make it they will not have a worse fate than the prior batch…

 

 

I will have a 10 gallon quarantine tank free to transfer them in around 8 days as a grow out tank.

[Pepere]

Spent some time cleaning out the breeder box with airline tubing attached to a syringe.  Fuzzy eggs, egg capsule remains, plant matter.

 

I saw some with tails sticking out of the egg shells but not quite out yet, and O my goodness there are so many fry…

And Oh My Goodness they are so tiny and so quick and so active…. I have never seen such tiny fry.  I can see why they are so readily consumed in a tank with adults compared to livebearers…

so, what sort of survival rate might be expected from a hatched batch if you have a good batch?

 

ballpark are we looking at 10%?  20, 30%?

[nabokovfan87]

On 12/21/2022 at 6:39 PM, Pepere said:

so, what sort of survival rate might be expected from a hatched batch if you have a good batch?

The main thing is to get them eating. If you can do that, shouldn't lose many. Maybe 5-15% loss.

Issues I've had was "being too rough" when cleaning or having them try to jump on me. You're using the internal box, that's awesome for them. I waited 24 hours before feeding them. Some took a while to hatch, others were popped and looking for food. Just keep an eye out if possible on sacks and look specifically for development. As long as you see them progress, you're doing great. I found these..... Might give you a good idea of what to look for.

Initial stages (whiskers, etc. were first indications for me of doing well)

 

Secondary stages.  This is better at detailing the fins and other developing features.



I think stage E is where you'd start to see full pattern developed.

Edited December 22, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Pepere]

On 12/21/2022 at 10:19 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Just keep an eye out if possible on sacks and look specifically for development.

Edited December 22, 2022 by Pepere

[Pepere]

Easier said than done.  My eyes are not what they were…. 
 

Presbyopia is a bear.  Close up is a hardship.  I need to use a magnifying visor, but then the focal length suffers and at higher magnification I cant get close enough, and they are so quick they leave field of vision quickly….

I have Hikari first bites and repashy green to feed in the morning.    And first thing in the morning I will be starting a batch of baby brine shrimp.

I sort of figure the first week after hatching is the hardest followed by the second week…. After that in a 10 gallon grow out tank feeding baby brine shrimp 3 times a day, the losses should taper off quickly.

My understanding is that cory fry are more forgiving in the 1st few weeks of feeding than many other egg layers.

[nabokovfan87]

On 12/21/2022 at 7:40 PM, Pepere said:

My understanding is that cory fry are more forgiving in the 1st few weeks of feeding than many other egg layers.

Maybe? I would imagine they are better are grazing than others. I had a dual setup and can confirm that having stuff to go explore and graze on really made them grow bigger, faster.

I was feeding 3 times a day, probably too much, cleaned the fry box every 24-48 hours.

In terms of visually having issues to see i totally understand. I am blind without my glasses.  When it comes to development the "out of focus" method and what you're looking for is basically:

A. Very small, look like well, let's just say it doesn't look like fish fry initially.

B. Straight body, spine and body is apparent (rigid) and then you see two pectoral fins

C. Then you start to see dorsal and tail development

D. Then they actually look like a corydoras.

 

You're basically going from an undefined shape, to something visually much more apparent like a straight like (especially viewed from the top) and then you start to see fish-like features.

I have a light I use. You will very likely have success viewing them from above, light shining on the side to get a chance to visually see how they are developing.

If you need anything just DM me if it's time urgent, if not I try to check in at least once or twice a day here.

Looking forward to seeing how these do for you. 🙂

Edited December 22, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Huckleberry]

On 12/21/2022 at 1:10 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

 

Try having moss or something for cover for them and just use a pipette and repashy powder. It's great fry food.

Yeah I've done that, had no luck in the breeder box. Tried prob 5 times and became frustrated. Started putting the eggs in the 10 gallon and I've gotten muh better results. 

[KittenFishMom]

On 12/21/2022 at 10:40 PM, Pepere said:

Presbyopia is a bear.  Close up is a hardship.  I need to use a magnifying visor, but then the focal length suffers and at higher magnification I cant get close enough, and they are so quick they leave field of vision quickly….

I have taken photos of fish with my cell phone than the made the image much larger on my computer screen.  If you have a camera with autofocus and a quick shutter, you may see them much better on a big screen. Just point the camera where you think the fry are and take a bunch of photos. No film cost. Some photos should work, some will not.

Watching diving duck with binocs drives me nuts because they drive as I try to focus, then surface someplace else. And to add insult to injury, they are eating fish I want to catch in a few years. They are wonderful to see.

[Pepere]

The Ziss Breeder box with airstone channel for water movement has been working very well for me.

here is a picture of them 12 hours away from the oldest ones being 1 week old.

 

if you look closely you can see plump little tummies filled with freshly hatched brine shrimp. The yellowish orange spots….

[TeeJay]

They are definitely developing nicely. I have yet to find any eggs from my Cory's but I was shocked one day when I was feeding and I noticed a tiny Cory sifting around. I'm like whoa where did you come from little one. I'm sure it has to be at least a month old because when I finally noticed it, it was full form with full color. So it beat all the odds and ways laid hatched and grew to that size all on its own. Great job your doing. 🤗

[Pepere]

This morning marks two weeks since hatching.

 

This was just before getting transferred to a 10 gallon quarantine tank to grow out.

Edited January 4 by Pepere

[nabokovfan87]

Well, looks like you got yourself a herd/hoarde of corydoras. 🙂