Julii corydoras spawned and I need help

[Mississippi fish guy]

I got home from church today to find my Julii corys are spawn in the main tank. I have lately been using slightly cooler water In water changes hoping that this would happen but I don’t know how to remove the eggs and keep them alive. My green corys spawned a few times but the eggs either got fungus when i removed them or were eaten by other fish. How do I collect the eggs, keep them fungus free, and raise the fry?

Also my Bolivian ram is waiting for the eggs to eat them.

[Guppysnail]

Pick them off and use any container airstone as high as you can.  Use dechlorinated tap if it’s really hard cut it with distilled or RO. Do not use tank water. Tank water most if my eggs fungus.  
 High flow is my key to Cory eggs. 

[Mississippi fish guy]

Update: the ram has been detained and conventionally the corys are spawning in a spawning mop. However removing the ram appears to have stressed them and they may have stopped spawning but I think the males are currently waiting on the females.

Also I have to leave sooon do I will have to remove the eggs later

[Mississippi fish guy]

Update: The corys are spawning again and the ram was the only fish looking for looking for eggs in the spawning mop. Any eggs outside the spawning mop will probably be eaten by the cherry barbs or angel fish.

i will continue to give updates when i can.

[Mississippi fish guy]

@Guppysnail do I need a heater?

[Guppysnail]

As long as eggs stay 74-75 with the mass air no. 

[Mississippi fish guy]

Thanks I will work on it that soon as I can.

[Mississippi fish guy]

Update: I have set up my 5 gallon breeding tank after moving the pigmy sunfish out of it. I added an aerator and a cheap hob filter I had lying around and I think the tank has good circulation. I counted 11 eggs but there could be more in the spawning mop.

what are some other ways to keep the eggs fungus free?

[Guppysnail]

Remove those eggs from the mop.  It prevents solid circulation and encourages fungal growth. Place the eggs in 100% clean dechlorinated tap.  

[Mississippi fish guy]

On 9/30/2024 at 7:48 AM, Guppysnail said:

Remove those eggs from the mop.  It prevents solid circulation and encourages fungal growth. Place the eggs in 100% clean dechlorinated tap.  

Thanks I will start that now. I think one egg has fungus.

[Mississippi fish guy]

Update: I removed the eggs from the spawning mop. Unfortunately it took me a little while to get good at removing the eggs so several got smashed in the process. Currently I can’t keep a small container at the right temperature for the eggs so they are in the breeding tank. There is some mulm leftover from when I sprayed the tank out last night and I did use dechlorinated tap water. I plan on removing any definitively fungused eggs. That will be easier since my corys did not lay the eggs in clusters.

The corys are spawning again.

[Guppysnail]

If you have a specimen cup that hangs on tank hang it inside the tanks. Mulm contains all the bacteria and fungus needed to breakdown everything.  This means eggs also. Hopefully it works out. 

[Mississippi fish guy]

On 9/30/2024 at 9:57 AM, Guppysnail said:

If you have a specimen cup that hangs on tank hang it inside the tanks. Mulm contains all the bacteria and fungus needed to breakdown everything.  This means eggs also. Hopefully it works out. 

Thanks! I will do that with this second batch of eggs

[Mississippi fish guy]

Update: I set up the specimen container this morning and collected a few eggs before they could be eaten. I also added two more spawning mops to the main tank because every fish in the tank was on an egg hunt. I pulled the spawning mops for an egg collection and found five (which is at least how many were eaten) and moved them out. The corys are still spawning so I put the mops back in. 
 

since my corys are spawning does that mean they are fully grown?

[Mississippi fish guy]

Update: I just pulled 6 more eggs. 

[Guppysnail]

On 9/30/2024 at 3:53 PM, Mississippi fish guy said:

since my corys are spawning does that mean they are fully grown?

It means they reached sexual maturity. Fish continue growing their entire life.  It slows greatly after maturity because their energy goes to spawning but still occurs. 

[Mississippi fish guy]

Update: all the eggs in the 5 gallon have fungus. Thanks guppysnail for telling me to put them into the specimen container. I found two in the specimen container that had fungus but I removed those. All the other eggs are fine.

[Mississippi fish guy]

Update: unfortunately it appears that only two or three eggs out of the 11 I collected from the second spawn do not have fungus. I’m going to be removing the fungused eggs and leaving any that seem to be good.

im going to try to condition them and try to get them to spawn again. Is there anything else I can do to prevent fungus? Would methylene blue or malachite green help?

[Guppysnail]

Meth blue and malachite green are not very good in my personal experience.  
Remove the the spawning mop.  I have found those to already contain fungus naturally present in tanks from being in the tank.  Fungus is FAST and I noticed eggs collected from mops fungus much more and faster than the ones collected from plants and glass.  
Use a clump of moss or nothing.   It takes a bit more time to find and collect eggs deposited throughout the tank but my rate of fungus is maybe 1/10 if that of those collected from mops.  
The only eggs that I collect from mops I can hatch without 95% fungus mortality are those I can collect and use tap water with chlorine to kill the fungus. Meth and malachite are deterrents but don’t outright kill the fungus. 
Corydora eggs are also more “porous/permeable”. This can easily be seen with meth blue staining cory eggs.  Beth blue is toxic to a degree and posses its own hardship for eggs/fry.  
I tried using the chlorine in tap for cory eggs however the permeability of cory eggs made that method even worse than meth blue. 

 

[Mississippi fish guy]

On 10/2/2024 at 10:17 AM, Guppysnail said:

Remove the the spawning mop.  I have found those to already contain fungus naturally present in tanks from being in the tank.  Fungus is FAST and I noticed eggs collected from mops fungus much more and faster than the ones collected from plants and glass.  

I can try but if I do all the eggs get eaten. Should I move the Corys to the 5 gallon since they are spawning again?

[Guppysnail]

Here is my method.  
I start by feeding tons of white worms and grindle worms so this may be just that my kiddos satiate their need to hunt or just that the bellies are full 🤣 

However it works consistently with every corydora I’ve spawned.  I wholesale to vendors from my fishroom so this method has yielded me hundreds of cory in the past year and a half.  I do not collect all eggs or even every time maybe 1 of 8 times they spawn I collect. I would flood the market collecting all.
 

Feeding is essential. Spaced out several times a day so easy food and full bellies are always there.

 I use a deli meat wide shallow container with beads or stones in and a clump of moss on top. Most corydoa I’ve worked with like moss or algae over glass or mops.  
I prefer kids jewelry beads because missed eggs hatch and fry go in the head holes to avoid adult predation. 
 

I also sometimes just throw in tons of moss.  

 

[Mississippi fish guy]

On 10/2/2024 at 11:45 AM, Guppysnail said:

Most corydoa I’ve worked with like moss or agar over glass or mops

Two things, I don’t have moss just a small blog of some kind of hair algae that I’m using and what is agar?

On 10/2/2024 at 11:45 AM, Guppysnail said:

Feeding is essential. Spaced out several times a day so easy food and full bellies are always there.

I will start in that now

[Mississippi fish guy]

Update: I have collected 8 eggs so far, not including one that that did not stick and is floating around 

[Guppysnail]

On 10/2/2024 at 1:26 PM, Mississippi fish guy said:

what is agar

Typo. I meant algae. 

[Mississippi fish guy]

Update: I have collected 18 eggs today and there are probably more that I don’t have time to look for.