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Breeding corys????


Mazonic

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hey

I have a 3 foot tank that i want to setup to breed some sort of corys.

Could some recommend a species easy to breed ? and the required set up e.g. lighting, temp , substrate , plants and any other thing important to breed corys?

cheers

Mason

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Bronzes are the easiest

As for the setup, some say bare bottom but it really depends on how you intend on raising the fry and how much time you have.

For a low input setup

You can have a leaf litter substrate, medium lighting, plenty of floating plants and plenty of wood and places to hide, feed the tank, regular water changes and strip it down in 6 months, your population will be much bigger than when you started

High work, more babies

Bare bottom tank, fake plants, dim lights, run peat fibre in your filter, save the eggs and separate grow out tanks or floating baskets (fly mesh works well)

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The best (most successful) setup I've seen for breeding is a shallow tank (250mm water level) with 2-3cm gravel (rock size not depth) and plenty of wide leaf plants. They lay their eggs on the leaves and when they hatch the fry fall between the gaps in the gravel and don't become food (bare bottom tanks run the risk of them being eaten). Once they're big enough they come out from the gravel (about a month later) and start growing like crazy.

I doubled my population in 3 months with a tank setup like this (but deeper) and I had angels in the tank who spent all their time hunting for and eating the eggs off the plants. Without the predators they would have been more productive.

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I endorse everything said above, BUT I recommend you go with a slightly more exotic cory like Panda, Fake Julii or Sterbai. They will only be slightly harder to breed, and by that I mean you won't be able to leave them alone and expect eggs. But if the conditions are right they are just as easy as Bronze Corys to spawn.

The reason I endorse these corydoras species is simply because they are just that much easier to move on later. And they look way better IMO.

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Adolfoi's are a great Cory, very easy to sell on. I got a group from the shipment HFF got in about 2years ago, Bred very well and regularly.

Downside is the spawns are very small, I was getting about 20 eggs per spawn, aprox half were viable.

Very large eggs and mine didn't touch them (fry were still fair game tho), upside of that is they can take bigger food, microworms, decap brine shrimp straight away, no worries about feeding green water, infusoria etc like some other cories like Trilineatus (fake Juliei)

Major downside with them is growth rate, I could have increased it but only had time to feed once per day, occasionally twice/day.

I did an experiment, grew out bronze cories in same tank, spawns were within 2 days of each other.

Bronze were 3+cm within 6-8 weeks

Adolfois were sitting at 1cm

It took me about 4 or more months to get them to saleable size, even then they were small and couldnt get more than $10-12 each from a local fish shop (I only sell to fish shops, club members and other breeders) which was IMO a fair price, but do the maths.

My group was about 10 fish I paid $50ish each as they were the first shipment in years.

Grow out for 6+ months till breeding thats about a year before you can recoup your investment and all that time you have to feed the fry pay for heating etc.

Unless you had a perfected setup, live food, a super efficient fish room and time to feed em 4 times a day, I'd go with sterbais, panda's or some of the new lines that have come in lately.

Saleable within 8 weeks and bigger spawns.

But following that logic Bronzes can spawn over 200 at a go and have IMO the fastest growth rate, saleable at 6 weeks or so if you feed em hard out.

if you can move them on at $2 each thats a nice $400 every 6 weeks, less costs.

The hard part is not flooding the market, That is why I endorse only selling to LFS as they can turn them over. The difficulty there is unless you have a rep for quality and reliability most wont take em from you.

The reality is you may be able to subsidise the hobby by breeding but you will never make any real money out of breeding (unless you invest a huge sum and heaps of time)

I personally breed for fun and to secure species in NZ. The Market is just too small and as we are a colder climate you will loose all your profits because we are restricted to growing out in tanks, not ponds like tropical countries.

HTH Owen

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Interesting... :cofn:

You could breed Skunk corys that just came in from Germany (HFF), They are an awesome looking cory, especially in groups. + they were cheaper than Adolfis.

are they? i thought i saw them for around $50 yesterday when i was there, also i have breed sterbais, i found them quite easy to breed as long as you have good stock (mine has been in my hands for 4 generations + a couple more from who i got them off, so the fertilization isnt a problem for me)

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skunks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they seem so cool!!!!!!!!

i'm gonna try for those !!! and if i cant get or afford those ill get panda!!!!

how many would you recommend for a 4 foot!

could the tank only have corys!!!?

I love corydoras!!!!

cheers

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