Corydoras and my addicition for them

By Justin Warnock

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Well this will be my first article I am attempting to write so you have to forgive me if it is not up to pare. That being said, I will begin by telling you that this family of fish has a great hold on me. I currently have 20 species of Cory cats ( including one species of Aspidoras ), and I am always searching for more and as I have a serious "addiction" with Cories. I am not what it is about them that fascinates me so much but I do indeed have a " problem." Maybe it's the way they clean the tank, or the way they all the sudden dart to the surface for a " gulp " of air, perhaps its the way they roll their eyes at you ? I don't know honestly, but I will admit to the fact that when I first started in the hobby I thought they were " ugly and boring " boy has my opinion changed since then. Now I look at them and think how can someone not love these guys, as when I had my first experience with them outside of a fish store I was sold. I immediately went and bought about half a dozen of very young Corydoras Aeneus " albino " and instantly fell in love and they soon became a dozen I had them in just about every community tank I had. At the time I had roughly 5 community tanks at the time ranging from a 37 gallon to a 10 gallon.

After about a year or so I just got home from work and happen to notice that the cories where going crazy in the tank swimming up and down the back and sides of the tank,then when I went to check out what the problem was I spotted some white spots all over the tank..... EGGS !!!! but it wasn't that simply as this was my first experience with an egg layer and I wasn't too sure if they were eggs or some sort of alien had planted something in my tank. So I called up my buddy who had about 25 more years experience with fish and asked him the heck was going on, well after having him laughat me and my excitement, as I thought something was going wrong with my tank, he explained to me that the cories had spawned and that those " alien planted balls " were the eggs. After a couple minutes of " coaching " me of how to safely tranfer the eggs to a different tank as they were in a tank with other fish that would eat them and had already done just that was you can see where the eggs had been from the rings on the glass that were missing the eggs. Well I got them to the other tank and transfered them on to the glass in that tank. A couple days later I noticed that all the eggs were gone.... " where did they go.... oh no " then I started looking around and then I spotted this tiny sliver bouncing between some of the gravel, then another and another. I was relieved then as I " found " the eggs. Let me tell you after that experience there was no turning back as Cory fry are by far some of the " cutest " things I have ever seen. Well I started feeding them LiquiFry as and I also had my first experience hatching Brine Shrimp. And they soon were going like crazy as that tank I had put them had a unwanted population of live black worms living in the gravel so they were fed from me and were fed from the tank as well. The parents spawned several times after than and I for awhile I was getting a spawn once a week as I had about 3 females in the tank. I unforutanely sold them as at the time I was not into breeding fish as it just something for me to do and I was into oddballs mainly larger fish.

Well after moving to the area here from Washington state I decided it was time to get back into the hobby as I didn't have anything better to do and then I discovered That Fish Place. I started out with just a 10 gallon and the first thing on my list was some cories and seeing the variety that was available at T.F.P I have been adding tanks and more species of Corydoras and other fish, but my main focus has been cory cats and I have been able to aquire 20 species in less than a year, some of which were " mix in's " and were just a single speciment which some have actually came into stock in the month or so and have been able to get colonies of most of them. I currently only have about 3 species that are mature and are spawning every now and again, but I have not been successful in getting the eggs out as I am calling it " practice spawning " for the fish. As my males were still not mature and I was getting infertile eggs but the past couple of spawns looked to be fertile. So if you want some fish to clean up your tanks and give you some great enjoyment Cory cats are the way to go!