Ktttk

Great pics Ryan and congrats on more Demasoni fry!! The baenschi and Jacob look very similar in colouring.

Thanks for the comments. The only small downside at the moment is that the fish are quite shy and skittish. They'll only start coming out of the hidey holes and swimming around when its near feeding time in the evening.. I'd like to see them out and about a bit more. I was wondering if I should add more fish .. maybe another open water species like electra.. I thought the cherry barbs would act as dither fish, but they don't seem to have that effect.. and the WMCCs have all but disappeared.. I'm pretty sure the peacocks are the culprits :evil: Thats probably why they are in good breeding condition.. oh and there's another peacock holding too :bounce:

If you are after more information such as personal experience spawning these 2 species, a good site to visit is http://www.corydorasworld.com/ which is run by Ian Fuller. The site requires payment of a membership fee to join but I understand that this is because it includes a lot of the information that is published in Ian Fuller's books on Corys. I have not joined myself but thought it might be something you could look into..

I use silica sand which I purchased from placemakers. It wasn't that expensive from memory - $16 for 20 kg i think.

Even tank lighting, he looks to have a darkish orange-yellow - so I think the photo is a good representation of his colour - albeit the flash in the pic makes his colouring a little brigher. He is definitely not the bright yellow that you see with many mature male baenschi but I'm hoping this will develop as he matures further.

An update on the peacocks in the tank - the male is developing more colour now... ... so much so that he's managed to score with one of the 4 ladies.. 8) This will be the first time they have spawned so am I right to not expect too much from this?

Here are some pics of the fry... They are in an opaque plastic container, floating in the breeding tank so its quite difficult to take a pic through the side of the container - this is the best I could do. You can see the marking over the eye beginning to develop.. And here are a couple taken from above the water... The oldest fry would be a couple of the weeks or so and the youngest would be the newly hatched up just below the snail - the egg yoke is still visible. They have just been fed some decap brine shrimp eggs - thats why their bellies are so orange! The little dots on the container surface are left over decap brine shrimp eggs which will be eaten by tomorrow - This is an excellent food for the cory fries. I also feed them powered pellet food (NLS growth)

Tank is 45W 30H 25D giving a volume of about 34L. Temp is about 25C. I use Auckland tap water which is quite soft with neutral pH. They range from 2.5cm to about 4cm in total length. I feed them on white worms, blood worms and decap brine shrimp eggs. 30% water changes twice a week and they usually spawn not long after the water change. Good luck with your cories - i think conditioning is the key! Feed them lots of live/frozen food. Thanks. Some of the fry are about two weeks old now.. will try and get pics later.

Great link MarkLB! I find the sand substrate easier to clean as the debris stays on the surface - unlike gravel where it can fall between the pebbles. In saying that, I hardly need to vacuum at all because movement from the fish (especially their sand sifting behaviour) ends up stirring the debris which then gets sucked up by the filter.

Was browsing the web and came across this new variant of frontosa which is currently labelled as the Black widow frontosa. They have spots instead of stripes! The breeder claims that it has been line bred from a wild mutant specimen.

Good luck!!!

Thanks guys, I'm glad you all like it! :bounce: Now its just waiting for them to mature and then hopefully start to breed!

Can you post a pic of them?

I haven't had the need to strip mine yet but when the time comes, I think it will be relatively easy to pull out the bricks and then re-stack them back in again..

Postgrad student at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute - a large scale research institute arm of Auckland Uni.

I think I'll take some yellows out - I've spotted a few that have some dark barring/blotches on the sides so will probably remove them so they don't breed.. but then I have to find a place for them to go...

Full tank shot update...

The peacock hasn't coloured up yet because he was a sub-dominant male in the tank when I got him. So fingers crossed he will colour up nicely! The are plenty of places to hide in my tank so none of the fish are getting beaten up at all. There's usually a chase here and there but its very short-lived. The one getting chased just dives into one of the holes in the brick and the chase ends there. I have found that they like to dig little pits in the sand - particularly under the java fern roots. I might take out a few yellows soon as they are bigger than the dems, creating a yellow mass that seems to dominate the tank too much - particularly during feeding time 8)

The baenschi male is about 6-7cm at a guess. I'm pretty sure its the peacocks that have been picking off the wcmms as they are the only ones with big enough mouths! The cherry barbs are bigger than the wcmms so i guess they are left alone. The 3 biggest demasonis have each staked out a piece of territory so I can probably assume that they are male. They tend to chase other dems that come into their area. I've observed some body shaking going on which just ends in a quick chase. The bottom of the tank is quite crowded at the moment (~16 dems, ~16 yellows, 5 peacocks) considering the foot print of the tank is not that big as it is a 'tall' 3 foot. Do you think the yellows and dems will breed if its too crowded?

hmm.. finally got my pics uploaded to photobucket - the problem wasn't my slow line, it was the new photobucket uploading software. I got everything to finally work when I reverted back to the old uploader where you had to individually browse and choose each photo you want to upload - its tedious but its reliable!! Anyway, onto the pics. I didn't take a full tank shot as I had my macro lens mounted and couldn't be bothered swapping to the wider angle lens - I'll do that next time. So most of these shots are close-ups of the fish. I have added a further 15 Cherry barbs to the tank because the mid to top range of the tank was rather empty as the dems and yellows tend to stay around the bricks and near the bottom. The cherry barbs have done well - only a few nicks in the tail here and there. I also added about 10 WCMMs to the tank hoping they would act as dither fish along with the cherry barbs so that the dems and yellows would come out more. Now I count only 3 WCMMs and I think the culprits are the peacocks!! Male peacock who is slowly developing his colours: I think this is a male electric yellow: And it wasn't until I had a look at this close-up that I noticed the little mustache that he is beginning to sport: And the dems - These I think are male as they are bigger and darker in colour than the rest: Does this one look like a female? It appears lighter and smaller than than the ones in the pics above which have darker throats and bolder colouring. And a nice close up: And finally a peek into my GBA breeding cave where they are at it again (this is in a separate breeding tank by the way): Thats all there is for now..

In the mean time, here's one I took last week..

I've had no issues with the bricks at all - I just gave them a bit of a wash with the hose to get the dust off and popped them straight in the tank.

hey Ryan, Just grabbed my camera and took some shots - but its taking an age to upload the pics cos I went over the limit for downloading stuff this month and they've slowed down my line :evil: ... I'll hav them up sometime tomorrow..

Have you tried garden worms? The frog that I found seems to love it!! Look under rocks etc or I'm sure there are a number of methods on the net you could try to summon the worms to the surface..

Congrats - was it a brand new one?