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Hi,

I have just broke into the world or corys and I am so glad I have I love these guys! I bought 3 bronze cats at the weekend. I have a 5 zebra danios and a male fighter in the same tank. And they are getting on fine. Just wondering if these guys are easy to breed by beginners like me? I am going to buy a few more at the weekend from a different shop so I spread the gene pool.

Cheers for any advice.

Item number one: For happy Corys, a minimum of 6 individuals is considered de rigeur, but of course if you have space for more, the more, the merrier. This does depends somewhat upon species - habrosus, Pandas and Pygmy Corys, for example, should have a minimum shoal size of 8 (and preferably a good deal more) because they are more avowedly social than the larger Corys. With bronze Corys, 6 will do fine at first, but if you have space to put 10 or more in, they will love you for it.

Item number two: For years Corys have been bought by people as 'scavenger fishes'. While they ae diligent moppers-up of uneaten food missed by other fishes, they appreciate being treated as honoured guests at the banquet table as much as any Discus or Chocolate Gourami. If you ever get the chance to feed your Corys with live Bloodworm as I do with my Pandas, watch them closely - you'll practically see them with maniacal grins on their faces! This means of course that actively feeding your Corys with prime foods is the way to go to condition them for breeding - if you CAN given them live Bloodworm or live Daphnia, you'll see them come along at a rate of knots and become big, boucny, healthy adult Corys in no time.

Item number three: While Corys are bottom feeders, and of course substrates in all fish-populated bodies of water, natural or artificial, collect gunk of various kinds, Corys appreciate attention to cleanliness of the substrate. Give your aquarium a good gravel vac and water change on a regular basis and again, you will have happy Corys.

Item number four: Corys are playful. They like stimulating environments. Live plants, intricate bits of bogwood that form caves, all of these are de rigeur in a Cory aquarium. If they have a mixture of plant thickets, open areas, and bogwood caves to call their own, again they'll be happy.

Item number five: Once they are mature, the females are usually the bigger and plumper fishes. Other than that, there are few, if any, reliable distinguishing characteristics between male and female fishes. Another reason to shop around and get yourself a decent sized group, so that you're guaranteed to have at least one male and one female in the bunch that you can, with time, recognise as male and female.

Item number six: In the wild, the spawning trigger for Corys is the onset of the rainy season. Millions of gallons of fresh, oxygenated rainwater landing on their Amazonian river home. Which also causes a slight temperature drop as well as suddenly providing the Corys with a lot more oxygen in the water than they had during the parched dry season. This is also the signal for millions of aquatic invertebrates and insects with aquatic larval stages to start breeding like mad, thus providing the fry with a huge source of food to plunder at will. So, it makes sense for the Corys to breed at this time. Which they do with gusto. Believe me, Corys are very energetic spawners - my Pandas are practically nuclear powered once they get going! This means that you can, to a certain extent, time their spawning to be reasonably convenient for you - by the simple expedient of giving them a big water change that results in a temperature drop of 2 degrees C in the aquarium. If you've given them a huge banquet of live Bloodworm at least once a day for the previous three days, chances are they'll start spawning about 2 hours after the water change.

Item number seven: Bronze Corys produce a lot of eggs. A big female can produce 250 to 400 eggs. That's a LOT of fry. Chances are you won't be able to raise them all unless you have a spare 150 gallon tank going as a nursery. So you will need to make a decision as to which ones are going to be carried through to adulthood. If your Corys spawn in a community aquarium, the other fishes will help with that decision by eating a good number of the eggs. Your best bet is to acquire some Java Moss, let the Corys spawn in that, and when there are 40 or 50 eggs in the Java Moss (it won't take long for that to happen!) remove the Java Moss by putting it into a container of some kind whilst still underwater (do NOT expose the eggs to atmospheric air or you'll kill them) and transfer the Java Moss with care to your planned nursery aquarium. Then let the Corys continue spawning in the community aquarium and let the other fishes have some caviar.

This little lot of hints and tips shuld keep you going for some time.



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Thanks for all that. I have printed off so I can keep refering back to it.

Hi there,
Im wondering what size tank you have these fish in?
Bronze corys are one of the largest cory species,
tipping the scales at 3 inches and more.
I have seen nearly 4 inch female behemoths nearing 15 years in age.

I would recommend no less than a 20 gallon for bronze cory cats, and they need to be kept in a group of at least 6 individuals of the same species (albino are same species so this could be a mix of the 2 color morphs).

I see you also have zebra danios, again a fish I would recommend for no less than 20 gallons. I keep 8 of these fish in my 75g tank and they use every inch of space, I personally could not see ever again myself keeping them in less than a nice 4 foot tank.


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A 4" corydoras aeneus-esque fish is almost guarenteed to be a brochis. Even the largest corydoras, amongst them, robustus and arcuatus super only rarely exceed ~4".

Thanks for all the advise. My tank is 2llons, I think.
When I feed them live bloodworm, the bloodworm always come in water that looks red. Is it ok to tip this water intank or should i pour the water and worms into a fine net so all water goes then put worms into tank?

thats 20 gallons!

Always wash your Bloodworks first.

You've no idea what might be living in the water that they come in. When I take delivery of live Bloodworm, they're pre-bagged, so what I do is, I wash them in a fine net, then put them in a container with some clean water and let them settle for a while. I also give them a small amount of fish food to munch on so that when it's time to feed them to the Panda Corys, they're gut loaded.

I also wash and sieve Daphnia for the same reason - no telling what might have hitched a lift with them. In fact, I've encountered quite a few interesting aquatic invertebrates doing this - for example, the little critter in the picture below that quite frankly you would NOT want to have living in an aquarium with prized fishes because, well, it's the larva of a large aquatic beetle called Acilius sulcatus, which is easily capable of attacking smaller fishes for food ...


Attached Image:


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

far out look at the nippers on the end of that monsteralso i didnt know that the corys should be in groups 6 plus,i only have 2 in my daughters tank,they seem fine and are well fed,do u think i should get some more,she has a 29gal..communtiy

Yes, all schooling fishes should be kept in
groups of 6 or more.
I am currently campaigning local stores to put such
info on their species tags.
My fave LFS deals with this situation by always selling
schooling fish for better deals in groups of 5-6 or more.
People are much more likely to buy the 5 cory cats for 17.00 than pay 4.99 each.


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well i rekon we will try to get some more this weekend,we have to go to the LFS, so if they have em,ill get her another 6,that will be 8 in total then that should keep em happy

More would certianly be better, but as with all corydoras, they are loose shoalers, not schoolers and can do with just a few fish, if necessary.

I'd qualify that statement Cup - as follows.

Most Corydoras can indeed be regarded as 'moderately gregarious', preferring to be in good numbers of their own kind, but in quite a few cases capable of adapting to smaller numbers as and when the situation demands. There are some species however, which are, to use that well worn phrase of mine, more 'avowedly social' than the average. In my experience, the smallest Corydoras fit into this category - I've definitely noticed it with pygmaeus and habrosus, which are apt to sulk if you only keep odd ones and twos, and as for Pandas, well any group size less than 8 just won't do with those, and if you have the space to keep 12 or more, so much the better.

Basically, I would put the following species in the 'avowedly social' category, and recommend a MINIMUM group size of 8, with 12 upwards being much the preferable option:

Corydoras pygmaeus
Corydoras hastatus
Corydoras habrosus
Corydoras cochui
Corydoras panda

The bigger species tend to be more laissez faire about such matters, and indeed some of the long snouted hillstream species (the ones that present breeding challenges even to veterans such as Derek Lambourne and Ian Fuller) are likely to need a fair amount of space if they're to be kept in numbers, partly on account of their large size, but partly because they may also exhibit a need for greater 'personal space'. They're not anything like Cichlids of course, which launch into ferocious internecine warfare if they feel they're crowded, but some of the 'awkward squad' do need space to call their own when they feel the need to be alone.

It might also be a good idea to keep certain other species in decent sized groups - I'm thinking here of Corydoras axelrodi and Corydoras atropersonatus, which are notorious for being e to travel shock and need special care with respect to acclimatisation anyway.

The long-domesticated Corydoras aeneus and Corydoras paleatus are, of course, the most adaptable in this regard, but even they would, I suspect, perk up noticeably if given several playmates, space allowing of course given that these are among the bulkiest members of the Genus in terms of body size.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Sure, corys can be kept in smaller groups,
you wont however see them to their fullest fun
in less than a group of 6.
With corys, Id say the rule is, get as many as you
have room for, you wont regret it!


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If the antics of my Pandas are an indication of the fun and frolics to be had with a large group of Corys, then yes, go for as many as you can.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002