Managed to get a few pics of my panda cories in a breeding frenzy this evening. They are in a small breeding tank with sand, java moss, some rocks, driftwood and some breeding mops.

Males chasing the females around:

This is the first time I saw the 'T-position' that I've read a lot about in the literature. Once in the position, the male shivers for a second or so (like you see with malawi cichlids) and then disengages. The female then appears to go into a daze (like female fighters after the 'squeeze') and lays still on the sand for 3-4 seconds. She then 'wakes up' and there's an egg clasped in her pair of fins under her belly (can't remember what they're called edit: ventral fins!) and she starts looking for a place to deposit the eggs.

female with egg...

And i thought this was an interesting pic. Their barbels have variable black pigmentation..

nice pics you have there

Wonderful pictures, thank you!

wow nice pictures very clear

WOW incredible pics.. what sorta camera is that? I hope this inspires more people to breed these lovely fish. Once we found a baby panda by accident in a 2 foot tank. Cories often surprise you

Thanks for the comments.

This was taken with my canon 400D with the 60mm macro lens. The cories were in a bit of a breeding frenzy, swimming all over the place during the photo shoot so I could only manage a few good shots - plus i'm a newby photographer as well.. :oops:

These are really lovely fish to both keep and breed - very gentle in nature and entertaining to watch. These guys were in a community tank before with guppies and in that setup, I'd find a new young cory emerge once every month or so - the guppies end up picking off most of the little babies. But now they have their own little tank and over the past week, they've spawned twice and I've collected about 70 eggs - some of which have started to hatch. Will keep this updated as I take more photos.

What were the conditions like for the fish? Temp etc. What did you feed them and how big are they I have some elegans and aggazzi im keen on breeding soon

Nice perfect clear pics. Keep us posted on how the fry are going.

What were the conditions like for the fish? Temp etc. What did you feed them and how big are they I have some elegans and aggazzi im keen on breeding soon

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.

Nice perfect clear pics. Keep us posted on how the fry are going.

Thanks.

Some of the fry are about two weeks old now.. will try and get pics later.

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)

They're so cool I like their little wiskers. Congrats on getting them.

WOW they too cute

Awesome work man good numbers going there for quite an expensive fish

Do you know how many fry you have???

Oh how do you collect the eggs? Do the parents 'stick' them on the side of the tank?

Do you know how many fry you have???

From a quick count there's between 50-70 at the moment. But I'm pulling out about 70 eggs a week if I put in the effort and go hunting for the eggs!

Oh how do you collect the eggs? Do the parents 'stick' them on the side of the tank?

I use a floating mop luke - like the killifish breeders use and the pandas deposit their eggs in the mop. If I have time, I'll go through them once or twice a week and pick out the eggs which I put into a little container for hatching.

cool i have some mops i was using for killifish!

Here are some pics of the fry..

And here's one where he/she is playing dead!

An update on the panda fry - they now have their own little tank and are growing fairly quickly..

This one I think is the oldest of the lot..

wow awesome you breeding any other cory?

wow awesome you breeding any other cory?

I'm looking at adding a group of 6 Sterbai to my Panda breeding tank and see if I can spawn two species in one setup. One of sterbai appears to have burnt part of its head on the heater well it looks like a burn anyway - when it recovers, I'll move the group across. They are currently in a community tank.

Corys can hybridize though, cant they?

Corys can hybridize though, cant they?

Yes they can indeed hybridise but after doing some reading and posting on planetcatfish - the conclusion appears to be that if you have a large enough group of one species (and havng both males and females), then hybridisation is quite rare - although one person posted that they had a panda-sterbai cross in their tank. Anywhooo, it'll be interesting to see what happens - if hybridisation does occur, I'll just make sure they don't leave my tank

Will you be selling the the babies on trademe?

I would interested

Will you be selling the the babies on trademe?

I would interested

That'll depend on how many I raise to sale-able size..