Cory stocking

[Billipo]

I have a 40G breeder community tank which is stocked with various species to 68% per AquaAdvisor. My current clean up crew consists of 5 Sterbais and 5 Ottos.  

I was interested in adding another small Cory species. How many more Cories would the tank reasonably support?

thx.

[clownbaby]

What's the other stocking? 

It is always better to increase your number of one cories species than increase your species of cories, so I would recommend just adding more sterbais. However, if you wanted to get another species, the species most likely to shoal along with your sterbais would probably be violet corydoras / smudge spot corydoras, leopard corydoras, schwartzi corydoras, and perhaps salt and pepper corydoras (c. habrosus). Salt and pepper cories would likely shoal with your otos. Of course do your own research on all these species to make sure your temp, stocking, and water parameters are compatible. Use AqAdvisor and experiment with numbers, but probably 5 to 10 more cories (depending on the species) would be okay.

Edited Saturday at 05:47 PM by clownbaby

[Billipo]

On 10/12/2024 at 1:46 PM, clownbaby said:

What's the other stocking? 

Bolivian Rams, Von Rio Tetras, Emperor Tetras, and Red Eye Tetras. 

My concern was not just the overall load on the aquarium, but if it would be two many in my clean up crew.

[Tony s]

On 10/12/2024 at 1:53 PM, Billipo said:

but if it would be two many in my clean up crew

No such thing. The more corys in a group the more natural their behavior becomes. 6 corys behave a whole lot different than 50. I really want to get a big frag tank and try that 😁

you will have to feed them and not depend on scraps. I'm sure you do anyway, though

[mynameisnobody]

What’s a clean up crew? Such a thing does not exist. Keep stuff because you like it. The cleaning factor cancels itself out once you have to feed them. 

[Billipo]

On 10/12/2024 at 2:44 PM, Tony s said:

you will have to feed them and not depend on scraps. I'm sure you do anyway, though

I feed wafers every couple days besides the regular granule feedings for the rest of stock. Plus frozen bloodworms every Tuesday.

[Tony s]

I’m having a vision. 10” tall tank. 100g. 200 corys😂

[clownbaby]

On 10/12/2024 at 10:53 AM, Billipo said:

Bolivian Rams, Von Rio Tetras, Emperor Tetras, and Red Eye Tetras. 

My concern was not just the overall load on the aquarium, but if it would be two many in my clean up crew.

as others said, not really a concern. Yes otos love to graze on algae and I highly recommend having soft algae (diatoms + the easy to clean kinda pretty green algae, etc) in your tank for them to graze on as they please, but cories do not do much of a dent on algae. They of course eat scraps up and love to ruff up the substrate and look for more food but even then they'll be much more happier with bigger numbers rather than how much food is left in the substrate. 

The only true clean-up crew in a tank is the plants, algae, microorganisms, beneficial bacteria, and microfauna (daphnia, ostracods, copepods, detritus worms, etc). I got my snail Leroy to clean up fungus and diatoms and he did that for a while but now he is just a cute food hog and poo machine. 😂 Compared to my neons and cories he makes 10000000x more waste

If you have sand as your substrate, try adding live tubifex worms into your tank. They will end up living in the sand and pop up to breathe, and my pygmy cories will wait for them to pop out and then rush forward and slurp em up. CUTEST thing ever. My cories also just sift through the substrate looking for tubifex, so if your concern is they won't have much to look for in higher numbers, tubifex could help. Highly recommend tubifex worms in a clean up crew anyway as they actually clean up fish poo and then can also feed your fish and stimulate them. Great microfauna. 

[Odd Duck]

Many species of cories will shoal together, but do prefer a larger group of their own species.  Do be mindful of risking accidental hybrids.  Hybrids are strongly frowned on in most cory breeding circles since it makes them impossible to identify accurately.  ID’s on many species can be very challenging without producing hybrids.  It’s possible to keep cories from different lineages together with minimal risk of hybrids.  A quick search will tell you what lineage you have and what the lineage for the cories you’re interested in adding.  Your sterbai’s are lineage 9, for instance.  Just search “cory _______ lineage” and it usually is the in all of the first answer and often in the first 3 answers so it’s easy to confirm.

I have C. aeneus in with C. trilineatus together in my 100 G nanofish tank.  They will hang out together, but if there are large enough species groups they will tend to hang out with their own species a bit more.  I have about 12 aeneus and about 8 trilineatus - the number tends to shift around as random babies appear even though I don’t collect eggs anymore.  Plus they’re impossible to count with any certainty.  I also have gold lasers (lineage 7) in with similis (lineage 9) in another tank.  I had the lasers in with my sterbais but they didn’t seem to be prospering in that tank since I was keeping it warmer for the angels at that time so I finally moved them and they’re happier now.  I also cooled off the angel / sterbai tank a bit since I’m over the angels (jerks!) but still love the sterbai.  😝 

[Billipo]

Doing some quick lookups. Panda Cories are 9 as well so that wouldn't be a wise choice, but Corydoras Paleatus being 1 or Aeneus Cory being a 7 should not be an issue. 

[Billipo]

Part of what I meant by clean-up crew are the inhabitants that tend to stick to the bottom. Since a tank has only so much fish capacity - nice to stock for activity at all tank levels especially since it is my community tank. I'm trying to respect acceptable group sizes without being too crowded in steerage. Being a breeder tank, it does have a decent footprint. About 650 sq. in

[mynameisnobody]

@Billipo *Bottom dweller