how many corys In a group?

[Sora_andfishies]

my LFS just stocked some bronze corys. as far as I can tell from their website they only have three of them. I was planning on getting more like 5 of them but would they do fine In a group of three? or should I not get them if there are only three. thanks!

[Guppysnail]

They will be fine but maybe shy. They are definitely happier in larger groups though. I personally would not let there being only 3 deter me if I wanted them. You can always add more later to get to 6-8. 

[Theplatymaster]

they can work in 3, but 5-6 is often recommended as the minumum shoal size, and they like to have more friends. Id wait to buy until i could get 5-6.

[Lennie]

They just like to be in bigger groups, the more the merrier. I personally wouldn't get 3.

I made the mistake and got 5 juvinile sterbais from my LFS a year ago and they never ever carried sterbais again, so I never had a chance to increase their school size. Are they fine? yea. But they are generally super shy, I mostly can't enjoy them. Even if they breed, healthy looking and stuff, they act more nocturnal or just move around when nobody is around.

From my experience some cory species are much shyer than others, and being in low numbers make them even shyer in general. 

What species are you looking for?

[Up North]

I started with 3 bronze and they quickly turned to 15.  Few days of frozen foods and a water change and they breed like crazy.  Never collected eggs or changed food for the fry just let nature do its thing

[Gannon]

 I have experience with 3 separate species, all of which dramatically perked up with groups larger than 6. It's almost a day and night difference which made me a firm believer in the 6 minimum rule of thumb. 

[Sora_andfishies]

I went to the store and they only had two Cory’s, so I bought them and the owner agreed to restock more. So I will get 3 more as soon as I can! They settled in really well and are just the cutest things.

[nabokovfan87]

On 2/14/2023 at 7:38 AM, Up North said:

I started with 3 bronze and they quickly turned to 15.  Few days of frozen foods and a water change and they breed like crazy.  Never collected eggs or changed food for the fry just let nature do its thing

I tend to just let corys do their thing as well.  Started with 10+ black corys, ended up with 4 after losing far too many.  Now I have much more.

My pandas were the same thing.  I had 5-6, ended up with 3 that made it through acclimation and then I had ~30 of them when they started spawning.

They will figure it out, just keep them happy and watch them (enjoy them) doing their thing.