Corydoras + Impending Storm

[nabokovfan87]

Hey Everyone.

I've been conditioning these guys to breed because we've been having storms on and off for about 3 weeks now.  Lighting, rain, off and on here and there.  Well, the big one is coming this weekend and I would like to hopefully do some good out of that.  I am posting just to ask what I need to do, verify everything, and make sure I don't leave anything out.

Conditioning = feeding 2x as much food as normal, heavy protein being favored.

Tank setup 1 - they've laid eggs in before, 2-3 spawns so far, the last one was not viable as it was a new female.  The first spawns were back to back, so one triggered the next.  They laid on wood, glass, etc.  There isn't a ton of plant cover, but flow is good in this tank.   Maybe I should add more or air?

Tank setup 2 - air powered, very high flow, wood, glass as spawning materials as well as a gigantic ball of susswassertang they can use.  This is the tank the adults are in right now because if they spawn I can move them to the main tank and raise the fry without issue.

I can use ice to drop temp, i can do water changes with this method to drop temp as well.  I have GH and KH buffers so if I need to raise PH or raise GH I can do so.

I can lift the lids to get more "atmosphere" in the tank and open the window in the room as a means to allow the sound or humidity to better get into the room.  Beyond that I am at a loss if there's anything in particular I need to do.

Is there anything I missed?

[Johannes]

I know that eric bodrock talked about adding livebearers to naturally introduce natural hormones, though that may not be nessescary because they have spawned for you before. Other than that spot on.

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/19/2023 at 12:12 AM, Johannes said:

eric bodrock talked about adding livebearers

Oh really! That's interesting.  I do have swordtails in the big tank.  The tank they are in now is designed to have some as well.  They are going under meds right now in QT.

 

[nabokovfan87]

A bit of promising activity thismorning.  Meal #2.5 of the day so far. I'll feed em once more before bed.

[AllFishNoBrakes]

@nabokovfan87 any luck? I’ve never intentionally tried to do a cool water change in conjunction with a storm to get mine to spawn. But, I’ve definitely done my normal water change, then there was a storm, and then they spawned. Would they have done so without the water change? Who knows. Just one of those things… let us know how it went for you!

[nabokovfan87]

,

On 8/19/2023 at 10:22 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

Would they have done so without the water change? Who knows. Just one of those things… let us know how it went for you!

There is all kinds of methods. Sometimes it's days after a water change or the days leading up to/after a big storm. The ones I have are a bit funky that way. I am hoping to get to generation 2 in my water and then I can really determine what is possible in my water with these corydoras.

Common things to trigger that I have found that works for the black Cory:

-GH change (I believe this was mentioned by secret history in your aquarium)

-feeding/conditioning

-random weather systems

-flow and places to lay said eggs. (Changed co2 diffuser and the equipment location and they spawned)

 

For the pandas:

-add water.

-oxygenated water (water changes)

 

I really wish I could find an updated version of this talk.

 

On 8/19/2023 at 10:22 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

any luck?

Nothing so far. Sometimes you'll just see behavior for weeks and nothing else.

Having the big ball of suss and seeing them playing in it is extremely encouraging.

One of the best triggers honestly is having a known surface or material they like to use and it's almost like they just know.

[nabokovfan87]

Morning number 2 and there was definitely some behavior.  I saw the younger male/female trying the T-Pose and seemingly trying to get things going.  It's that sense of "there's something in the water".  I checked on the tank when I got back and everyone is calm with no activity.  The storm lands in about an hour.  Dropping food in and we'll go from there!

[Odd Duck]

Have you tried big crypts or swords?  Mine seem to like laying on my Crypt. pontederiifolia almost as much as laying on the glass.  I didn’t witness the most recent laying in my 100 G nanofish tank so I don’t know if it was the bronzes or the trilineatus, but I’ve seen bronzes lay on both glass and plants.  The trilineatus seem to much prefer the plants whether it was the ponte crypts, Amazon swords, or Christmas moss.  Mine seem especially triggered by water changes 1-2 days after a pressure change.  It seems to simulate a big rain upstream with the cooler water flowing through their area afterwards.  Maybe that’s more likely to flush food downstream?  🤷🏻‍♀️ 

Edited August 20, 2023 by Odd Duck

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/20/2023 at 11:30 AM, Odd Duck said:

Mine seem especially triggered by water changes 1-2 days after a pressure change.

Same here. yes. 

I need to get some swords and bigger plants.  I had a big fern, but it's likely non-aquatic even though information is very conflicting.  I've been working on stuff.  Selling some shrimp shortly and hopefully that helps things out in the tanks a bit.

Ironically, the male shrimp are going a bit nuts.... slightly more than usual as well.
 

Update: current status

 

Edited August 20, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[Maximus]

One thing I've noticed is that the power head pump pointed at a spawning mop works really well, but if that power head gets turned off they will not spawn again until it's turned back on. It's not even high flow because I'm covering it with sponge. Otherwise I just have a sponge filter with an air stone. They will lay around that, the intake of the power head, the spawning mop, and the vallesnaria. Basic perimeter flow around a 10 gallon.

The opposite seemed true of the water temp changes. Once I did it once, accidentally, it was enough for them to basically be in the cycle of breeding forever. I've done water changes since, kept temp the same, it's gotten super hot here, etc and it's not like I had to retrigger with another water change of cool water.

I feed freeze dried tubifex in an inverted feeding cone heavily, and they seem to go nuts for this trick.

[nabokovfan87]

The main eye of the storm went way "off course" and went west by a few 100 miles.  It changed pretty dramatically when it hit land.  We do have a wave of weather coming towards us with one more big piece of rainfall coming in from about now until around 3-4 AM.  I have the window open in the room because the cool breeze is quite delightful after the swampy day we've had.

The tanks should cool off, fish are just waiting.  It's such an interesting sense they have.  I'll keep an eye out for activity and drop in some repashy tonight if they need any more food.

[beastie]

Ooh, please share with me what do you feed? I recently moved my 13 sterbai corydoras to a cube that has moss, anubias plant, hornwort and leaf litter in hopes of getting them to spawn. I feed more protein, but only once a day, I can bump it up, I always do a water change for colder (and always have done) and I see them glass surf basically since adding them to the tank, but no eggs.

Either the rest of the group eats it ( I couldnt identify a male-female and therefore couldnt catch a trio even if I could catch a single fish) so mine are either too young or too small or just not interested. We even had storms the past two weeks. I was hoping something would happen on its own in a planted tank, but alas, nothing 😞

[Odd Duck]

When they are ready, you should easily be able to ID the females that are heavy with eggs since they will be quite fat and have a pale area around their bellies.  The males are everybody else, essentially.  You’ll sometimes have females that aren’t ready at the same time but they will only join in the scrum occasionally instead of being dedicated to the chase like the males.  Make sure you have a dense enough area of plants that tired females can rest for a bit.

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/21/2023 at 3:05 AM, beastie said:

Ooh, please share with me what do you feed?

The main foods for me personally:

-Northfin krill pro pellets (planned to use)

-Northfin cichlid veggie pellets (same recipe as their algae wafers)

-aqueon nutrinsect tropical granules (newly found this, should work well)

-xtreme flake foods, currently community crave

-repashy soilent green, bottom scratcher, and community blend

(I'd like to try spawn and grow and some others)

On 8/21/2023 at 3:05 AM, beastie said:

Either the rest of the group eats it ( I couldnt identify a male-female and therefore couldnt catch a trio even if I could catch a single fish) so mine are either too young or too small or just not interested.

Feel free to share a photo of the setup and the fish to help ID if you want!

On 8/21/2023 at 3:05 AM, beastie said:

We even had storms the past two weeks. I was hoping something would happen on its own in a planted tank, but alas, nothing 😞

Sometimes they can be picky. Just feed something like repashy a few times a week after lights out and see how they respond after 1-2 weeks.

[beastie]

Sadly I only have Super green of repashy, so cant feed that as corydoras dont eat algae. I have dennerle crustagran and Fluval Bug bites but otherwise I am very stuck on what to feed from my dried food collection. I feed live microworms, live/frozen bbs, frozen cyclops, frozen bloodworms (not more than once a week), live/frozen mosquitos, once a month frozen tubiflex cause I am not sure if I should...

My dried food collection is low quality, I have few good algae/vegetable specific ones but none that are good for corydoras. I have like hikari micro pellets and hikari cichlid gold. I also have sera vipachip and some other pellets/flakes, but the ingredients are garbage...

Setup is a temporary 60 liter cube and it doesnt have lights 🙂 just an ikea lamp for sometimes pictures, otherwise is dark. Should I remove the cover glass perhaps? The tank is "temporary' since June and they have been in there for three weeks now.

I will try pictures of the corydoras, though they are shy, but I still think they may be too young/too small. I have a mixed group, half I had for 1 year and 9 months, half I have had for just the 9 months. And they are 3 or 3,5cm large only.

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/21/2023 at 8:37 AM, beastie said:

Sadly I only have Super green of repashy, so cant feed that as corydoras dont eat algae.

A lot of the foods I feed are omnivore and algae based. I understand what you mean though.

Potentially you're able to find something based on krill meal and that would work pretty well.

On 8/21/2023 at 8:37 AM, beastie said:

Setup is a temporary 60 liter cube and it doesnt have lights 🙂 just an ikea lamp for sometimes pictures, otherwise is dark. Should I remove the cover glass perhaps?

Nope, the glass should be fine. I would try adding a second air stone though. You do want to have some method for the air to exhaust off the top though, leaving ba crack exposed or something. If you have a glass cutter you can cut a 45 degree piece of the corner and use that for the cables and airlines as well.

On 8/21/2023 at 8:37 AM, beastie said:

My dried food collection is low quality, I have few good algae/vegetable specific ones but none that are good for corydoras. I have like hikari micro pellets and hikari cichlid gold. I also have sera vipachip and some other pellets/flakes, but the ingredients are garbage...

One that I think might do well but have to try is the hikari discus bio gold food. Ingredients don't seem too bad. The main thing for me is to avoid fish meal as much as I can. Fish oil as well. It's taken a lot of time to find methods.... And wait for new products to exist.  Sometimes is just unavoidable. Avoiding those two things has to do with shark byproducts for me. It's a personal choice, hopefully a good one for the fish as well. Mine do really swell on stuff like frozen brine shrimp too!

Overall the setup is really beautiful and pretty perfect for corydoras. They have open space, cover, they have a low light scenario. All you're really missing is a good bit of air. Sometimes they like to lay on flat broad surfaces too, but I would think they have plenty of choices. As they learn the tank my guess would be they lay a lot on that central large anubias.

[nabokovfan87]

It was a bit of a discouraging morning.  The fish seemed back to their old selves and hiding.  You wouldn't even know there was fish in the tank because of how well they can hide!  I fed some of the krill flake and then some of them started to eat.  I fed some repashy soilent green tonight.  The big female was swimming up and down the glass just checking things out.  Males weren't around, but she was "scouting" so to speak.  Maybe that's a good sign.  There was some water in the air, no rain last night, so that big final wave from the storm never happened. 

I went ahead and did the large water changes with good temp water for them.  We'll see.  I really hope to see eggs soon.

In the big tank I also added some GH due to the way that tank ends up working out.  Not a ton, but we'll see if that tank triggers while the other one with the adults doesn't.

[nabokovfan87]

Still nothing.

I read an article from Eric Bodrock (I can try to find it, just to verify if need be, but it was a pretty good source) looking at schultzei breeding specifically.  It mentioned a drop of 10-15 degrees as well as a 50-75% volume change.  I normally do 30-50%, so it makes sense as to why I am not really seeing a lot of the breeding response I'd expect.  I have done the very cold water change method, but just potentially not enough volume. 

As always, I feel like I'm always starting at square one with these guys until I can reliably trigger them. 

Ice water change is done, tank is cooler than it was when I started and I did a solid 75% water change this time.  I can't be sure how much the temp dropped, but it's right around the 5-10 degree mark.  Considering the heat today, I don't think it's out of range at all for the fish.  The night air is cool, sounds like a storm might be rolling in, but I only mention it to note that there is some sort of a pressure change from the day to the night.  There is also the big moon approaching, so maybe the timing is pretty good for this. 

I'll let you know if they trigger, but as far as I can see they are conditioned, the setup is good for spawning, they have shown behavior, but just need that trigger.

[Odd Duck]

Don’t you have pandas in another tank that are breeding readily?  Have you tried putting your pandas in with the blacks to see if that will trigger them?  They’re different lineages so they shouldn’t hybridize, but all those hormones going off may be a good trigger.  Or just use some water from the other tank when the pandas are going off as part of your water change.  Make sure to label those ice cubes if you freeze some.  😝 😂 🤣 

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/24/2023 at 10:04 PM, Odd Duck said:

Don’t you have pandas in another tank that are breeding readily?

not anymore.  re-homed them to some members on the forums.

[Odd Duck]

On 8/25/2023 at 12:09 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

not anymore.  re-homed them to some members on the forums.

Well, there’s your problem!  You didn’t have anybody teach them how it’s done!  😜 🤷🏻‍♀️

Anybody else in the house breeding?  It doesn’t have to be cory, um, . . . . . “juice”?

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/24/2023 at 10:20 PM, Odd Duck said:

Anybody else in the house breeding?  It doesn’t have to be cory, um, . . . . . “juice”?

they are kept with swordtails.  plenty of hormones for them around in both tanks.  We'll see!  Definitely a fickle species to trigger sometimes.

[Odd Duck]

Yep, you’d think that would be plenty.  But then again, maybe they need a surge of hormones rather than constant hormones?

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/25/2023 at 11:16 PM, Odd Duck said:

But then again, maybe they need a surge of hormones rather than constant hormones?

Maybe.  They definitely had the activity, breeding, but just no eggs.

It's gotta be food related.

 

I checked just a little bit ago. nothing.

 

[Odd Duck]

On 8/26/2023 at 2:50 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

I checked just a little bit ago. nothing.

Gosh, give them some privacy!  😂 🤣 

I have no idea why they aren’t breeding up a storm for you (see what I did there?).

It seems like you’re doing everything possible.  Do you have whiteworms or blackworms for them?  Those are their favorites to the point where I deliberately offer them less than I was in my 100 G nano so my bronzes don’t try to populate the whole world on their own.  I know you’re feeding meaty foods, maybe they need a bit of live, meaty to trigger them?