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My ammonia is down to less than .5ppm! There's just a trace! I am so happy. The nitrites are looking a bit lower today too. Hopefully they have peaked and I am on the backend of this cycle thang!

As far as Wal-mart goes, I have never bought a fish there. But I will continue to buy from PetSmart as long as they have the fish I am looking for and as long as the tanks look like they are in good shape when I am in there. But I WILL continue to take the (mostly unsolicited) advise of their employees with a grain of salt. If I have a question, I just come here!

I think that soon though I may go on a trek to an lfs or two around here in search of a pleco other than the "common" kind! When I told the gal at petsmart about the bristlenose I had and was looking for again, she looked kinda grossed out. I loved that weird guy!

That's great tankgrrrl!

I do agree that buying fish from anywhere else is probably a lot better than from Wal-mart. I usually have my husband pick fish up somewhere else & that turns out to be Petsmart cause they have them in about big city. But I will also buy from Wal-mart if I get impatient or see something I want. Granted............. I am taking a chance on adding disease to my tank, but I have found that mostly to be with the guppies. And the last ones I got that died were from Petsmart. Last night I was at Wal-mart & sooooooooo wanted to buy this really pretty guppy! I was wishing I had a quarantine tank. But was also thinking it would be neat to just have a guppy tank too.
I left the store grumbling about MTS & decided to just make myself happy about the two bronze cories I bought.

Instead of dragging a two year old around to pet stores, why don't you just call them in the ph. book & ask if they have any other pleco's? Let your fingers do the walking.

Right.............. I wouldn't take the advice of pet stores either.

Just walmart, how do I know, I was there
when they were dumping in 6 cups of chemicals.
When I asked what they were the lady said basically,
"its a mix we get from corporate, to put in
all the tanks daily.
Its go something for Ick, something for worms,
something for infections, something for fungus,
something for parasites, something for ph, something
for ammonia, something for nitrites and nitrates,
and hormones to color the fish up, and I dont know
what else".
I asked her if it was safe to mix all those things
together, she said she had no clue at all, it was just
what she was supposed to do.


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Sneaky, that is a scary revelation ...

Apparently no one there has asked themselves the basic question if any of those chemicals, when mixed together, will react with each other ... which is one reason why doctors (especially here in the UK) are very wary of prescribing multiple drugs these days unless there are compelling reasons for doing so (i.e., the patient will die if they don't). Likewise, UK veterinarians are very wary of multiple drug cocktails because of potentially unforeseen reactions in vivo that might have catastrophic effects, which is bad enough in pets, but could prove to be utterly calamitous in an animal intended to become part of the human food chain. We've discovered the hard way via BSE that substances can cross barriers previously thought to be impenetrable in unexpected ways, and deliver unexpected consequences, so what, I ask myself, might be happening with the Wal-Mart fishes exposed to this chemical cocktail? Apart from the stresses imposed by medication that isn't necessary, what time bombs are ticking away in the chemical cocktail because, unbeknownst to those nice people at "corporate" (how I feel the urge to reach for the minigun whenever I see that word, how it encapsulates SO much that is wrong with the world these days) the medications and other chemicals in the cocktail have reacted with each other? Producing who knows what? For all we know, the resulting cocktail might have human health implications as well ... ye Gods ...

All the more frightening when you realise that on several of my fish medications (most notably those made by Waterlife here in the UK), it states explicitly on the label, DO NOT MIX certain medications together!

Does anyone have ANY idea what's mixed in that cocktail? And moreover, if the constituents are, when bought separately, packaged with labels that warn explicity against mixing those consitutents with certain others?

This has the potential to become grounds for a lawsuit. If that cocktail is deleterious to the fishes because of reactions between the fishes, it's bad enough, but if the resulting cocktail has human health implications, Wal-mart could be staring a billion dollar class action in the face ... proof once more that corporate myopia and narrow focus upon the bottom line of a spreadsheet is NOT how you conduct affairs in any enterprise involving living things ...


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Well, back to the subject of Angelfish , its always hit or miss when putting 2 or more of them together. Sometimes they get along great and sometimes they don't. I have 2 medium sized angels and most of the time they are best buds...but here lately one of them is having bad days and is picking on the other. It just happened out of the blue. Sometimes I wish I had gone with gouramis instead because I don't want mine to become a breeding pair and torture my other fish...but on the other hand I want them to get along. Ahh...angelfish are so beautiful..but to keep them you have to put up with their aggression.

I do think that yours were stressed from coming to your tank from the LFS as well as the cycle...so I'll agree with others and tell ya to watch the nitrite and ammonia and don't add anymore fish until the cycle is finished.

Good luck!

Oh and I wouldn't put more than 2 angels in a 30g. More than that and the tank will look really crowded when they get full grown.

*Kristin*

In reply to Sneaky.............. I'm just rather speechless. Unlike Cali., I just don't know how to respond to all that. Guess it is just something for me to think about. I'm wondering if maybe it's an all purpose thing that other pet chain stores use also........... we just don't know about it.

That chemical thing does sound pretty scary. I am really too trusting though, and in my mind I am thinking SURELY they (wal-mart corporate) know what they are putting in there, even if the uninformed employee doesn't. But Fish Patty did have a good point that others could be doing it too, but we just don't SEE them. That would be an interesting question to ask a lfs owner, if I knew one and trusted that they would tell the truth and not just use it as an opportunity to bash competitors.

As for the angels, I may just stick with the one, he is really cool and very active around the tank. And then I may just move on to some cories next, oh and a bristlenose!

Today my ammonia is nearly undetectable! The weird part is that today my nitrites are completely at zero too. I have tested twice and can't figure out how they went from a medium-high level yesterday (again, I lost the color comparison chart) to zero today. Very strange! I didn't do a water change or anything. I just dosed with cycle and put in a little melafix yesterday. Just seems weird that is went down so quickly.

"As for the angels, I may just stick with the one,........."

I sure didn't see that one coming!

You're cycling your tank & you put melafix in, where you are supposed to remove the carbon fiter? Hmmmm I'm gonna leave this one for the experts to comment on.

Yeah, I agree. I totally didnt know what to
say to the employee after seeing that.
But the fact that she wore rubber gloves while
dosing it stopped me from buying walmart fish on
the spot.

Angels are fine kept alone. They do prefer
company, but dont seem to suffer any negative effects
from being school-less, unlike other schooling fish.

With Melafix - if the carbon in the tank is more
than 1 week old, no need to remove it. Carbon is
essentially useless after 1 weeks time anyway.

I dont even use it in any of my tanks anymore,
except to remove meds, where it goes in for a couple days,
then is removed.

If youre Ammonia and NitrItes are at zero, do a test
for NitrAtes. If you have visible NitrAtes, your tank
is fully cycled.
Sounds like youre there, or almost there.
Way to go!


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Ok, question time please.

I use the filter pads that have the built in carbon. If the pads have been in there more than a week & I use some kind of medicine in my tank I don't have to remove the filter pad, cause the carbon is more or less useless anyway? But then after I'm done medicating & the time is up for the medicine, I should put in a new pad to help remove the medicine?

You also said after a couple days you remove the carbon. Why is that? And I couldn't remove the carbon since it's attached to the filter media, so is it ok to just leave it in after the remaining medicine is absorbed or do I need to ditch it & put in yet another new one?

Sorry for all the questions............. I'm just trying to learn here.

Activated carbon is a subject all of its own.

The traditional means of producing activated carbon was to generate charcoal, powder it, then heat the charcoal at high temperature while passing steam over it. This is known as gas activated carbon, and results in a pretty effective filtration medium. The filtration takes place via adsorption (yes, that IS spelt right - ADsorption means binding to a surface, while ABsorption means incorporation into a volume matrix). Specifically, gas activated carbon binds a range of materials to its surface because of the existence of binding forces known to chemists as Van der Waals forces (named after the Dutch chemist who first studied them) and different substances will bind with different degrees of tenacity. When examined under the electron microscope, gas activated carbon (henceforth abbreviated to GAC) consists of particles with a HUGE surface area - one gram of GAC has a surface area equivalent to two tennis courts!

With that kind of surface area for binding, GAC will remove quite a few pollutants from water. However, different substances bind at different rates - ammonia, for example, binds fairly weakly to GAC, as the water molecules compete with the carbon upon account of ammonia being a polar molecule that dissolves VERY readily in water. Certain organic compounds, on the other hand, bind VERY readily to GAC, which unfortunately (or fortunately if you need to remove them quickly) includes many aquarium medications.

Once approximately 80% of the surface area has been bound to assorted molecules, the efficiency of the GAC drops off rapidly. However, GAC is recycleable. By heat treating with steam again, the GAC can be made to shed its load of pollutants and reused. However, this is a specialist operation, requiring special industrial plant capable of operating at 1,500 degrees Celsius and pressures of several tens of atmospheres! Not something that can be done at home unfortunately.

There is a chemical treatment process that will reactivate carbon without the need for heat and pressure. However, this involves the use of highly corrosive acids, and again is NOT a process that is amenable to anyone thinking of home recycling! The acid reconstitution method can be problematic in addition because of the presence of traces of zinc in the reagents used - eventually, chemical reactivation has to give way to the steam process to remove the zinc impurities.

However, a newer technology involves what is termed extruded carbon block or ECB. ECB media don't have greater adsorption capability, but the method of manufacture improves the kinetics of adsorption, thus making the material remove pollutants more quickly. ECB is nowadays found as the carbon filtration component in top of the range reverse osmosis units. ECB is capable of removing a percentage of the chlorine and chloramine content from drinking water, and ECB filtration media tend to have longer lives than GAC media. ECB media are also recylcable, but again, the recycling process involves heavy industrial processes that can NOT be replicated in the average home kitchen!

Certain molecules adsorb badly to activated carbon, whatever form it takes. One class of compounds that adsorbs badly to activated carbon is low molecular weight alcohols, and because of this, activated carbon is used to filter out impurities from vodka without affecting the alcohol content.

Activated carbon is deemed safe for medical use, and in human medicine it is used to adsorb toxic compounds in the gut to prevent them being absorbed into the bloodstream via the intestinal lining. Specially prepared suspensions of activated carbon are bottled in sterile liquid carrier media for the purpose. The use of such suspensions has proven to be useful in the prompt treatment of drug overdoses, for example, as the vast majority of drugs will adsorb readily onto the surface of the carbon particles, where they stay until they are voided via the usual excretory processes.

The life of a parituclar sample of activated carbon in the aquarium depends upon several interacting factors. These are:

[1] The initial quantity of activated carbon used;

[2] The level of bindable pollutants in the aquarium;

[3] The rate at which aquarium water is passed through the medium.

Certain substances will adsorb readily, while others will not: for example, any phenolic compounds produced by decay processes will not bind readily to activated carbon, and removal of these in the marine aquarium is usually achieved by protein skimming. Glycols are another group of compounds best removed by other means (or, if possible, not generated at all).

It is imperative that any activated carbon is only used to treat aquarium water AFTER it has been mechanically filtered to remove particulate matter, as suspended particulate matter will reduce the efficiency and the effective life of the carbon.

A simple test to find out if the carbon is still active is to use a safe water soluble food dye. if the food dye is removed by the carbon, it is still working reasonably well: if the dye passes through and the exit water is discoloured by the dye, the carbon needs to be changed.

Extruded Carbon Block (ECB) is becoming the material of choice in both industral water purification and aquaria. Firstly, it is actually cheaper to manufacture now than traditional GAC, and so is starting to migrate from high-end reverse osmosis systems to more affordable filtration systems. Additionally, once the manufacturing plant is in place to produce ECB on an industrial scale, the quality of the end product can be controlled to very high precision using laser diffraction techniques to determine particle size. A typical plant can turn out several tons of ECB per day in the form of a continuous cylinder of material which is then cut to size along the production line, the resulting material being of finely controlled quality. It also has the advantages of lighter weight, much greater structural integrity (you don't have to resort to expensive injection moulding of plastics to create a container for it) and easier recycling.

An insight into ECB manufacture is provided here.

I believe D-Deltec RO units use ECB in the carbon stage of their latest units. Anyone who is lucky enough to be able to afford a D-Deltec RO unit will be able to confirm this if they have one, because the carbon will be in the form of a solid looking cylinder that pops out of the carbon stage container for easy replacement.




Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

While that's all very interesting Cali.................. I think I got two things out of that might apply to my aquarium:

1) If I ever quit using premade pads I should be sure to use filter material to catch the decaying process first, cause that stuff limits the effectiveness of the carbon.

2) If I want to test my carbon I can use a little food dye. If it comes out the exit, I need new carbon.

Now in reference to my questions according to what you said............. If my filters are old I can leave them in while the medication is in there cause they are not going to absorb anything anyway..

When I'm done with the medicine & want it out I should put a new filter pad in so it will absorb the medicine.

After a couple of days it is my choice to either leave the pad in, or put a new one in. Preferably I should put a new one in cause the other carbon has probably absorbed all it is going to. But if I wanted to test it I could use food dye. Do I have all this correct?

That's more or less it in a nutshell.

Make sure that your choice of food dye is one that's been thoroughly vetted as safe for human consumption, something like natural cochineal - some of the synthetic ones (listed over here in the UK under the dreaded E-numbers list) have issues associated with them. The LAST thing you want to do is introduce something like tartrazine into your aquarium - that dye is renowned for being associated with a range of potential human health issues in sensitive people, and I would hazard a guess that it's not going to be too good for fishes either. At least with natural cochineal, you would be adding something that's safely biodegradable if the carbon didn't absorb it. Remember also you'll only need a couple of drops of the stuff to test!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

That's ok Cali.......... If I had any doubt about my carbon it would just be easier to put new in.

I always use carbon in my tank. I too use the cartridges with the carbon built in, I have an eclipse system and I think that is what you have to use with that. That makes it pretty much impossible to remove the carbon, because I am certainly not going to remove the entire filter media.

And yes, I may just stick with one angel. But more likely I will try one more time once my tank is finished cycling for certain. Sometimes it takes a while for me to learn my lesson!

You sound like me!

I noticed your B-Day is Feb. 1. Mine is the 7th. Does that make you Aquarius also?

Be sure to come back on & let us know how it's going.

Actually Patty, my birthday was wrong on the profile. I guess I never bothered to put the right one on, lol. Its really January 2nd. Gosh, I am getting old, I'll be 32!

I am going to get some cories this weekend for my tank. My kids think the pink ones are cute. I know they are supposed to be in groups of 6 or more, but is it okay to start with 3 or 4 and work my way up? I don't want to overload the newly cycled tank. They also have peppered cories at the store, anyone have any reccomendations? I have really light sand substrate, and I want to be able to SEE them, those albinos may blend in too much, ya think? Maybe I'll call around and see if I can find some panda cories, they sure are cute.

Believe me, if you run with Panda Corys, your life will NEVER be the same.

You can get them in batches of 4 at a time, so as not to overload the biological filter when introducing them, but with Pandas, you should have a minimum of 8 as your long term shoal, because they are mo re avowedly social than the larger Corys, which will live happilyin a group of 6. I have 14 Pandas in my main aquarium, and they are hilarious to watch!

I would get 4 to start with, then introduce another 4 after about 3 weeks. If you have enough space to introduce another 4 after that in another 3 weeks' time, be warned, they will take over your life with oodles of cuteness.

The kind of antics you can expect from them once they're acclimatised and settled in include:

[1] surfing the bubbles from your powerhead seemingly for the sheer fun of it;

[2] sitting upon the leaves of broad leaved plants such as Amazon Swords swaying in the current for all the world like an underwater version of a budgie on a swing;

[3] using your plants as climbing frames;

[4] turning any cave style furnishings in your aquarium into a Panda Cory tree house where they all congregate and get sociable;

[5] if they spawn, be prepared to see them zip around the aquarium so fast that they undergo a red shift!

Make sure that the gravel is given a gravel vac before you take delivery of them - Panda Corys like a clean substrate. If they are given regular water changes and gravel vacs, they reward your care and attention by becoming non stop suppliers of slapstick comedy moments that will charm your socks off and make you wonder how you lived your life without a tankful of them to giggle at.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I was waiting for someone to reply, as I wasn't qualified & figured with the mention of cories, especially panda cories, that Cali. would come 'round. He's quite the character, as you'll see & can tell you whatever you want to know about panda cories.

If you can't find the panda's.......... I looked up peppered cories on "search" & there are three threads there. Also if you just type in cories I imagine a lot of threads would come up with a lot of info..

I think you're right about the albinos........ they would be harder to see on a light substrate.

Theres a big difference in size between Pandas and
Peppered corys.
Pandas are a smaller cory, maxing out at about
2 inches, while peppers are one of the bigger at about
4 inches.
You could have a group of 6 peppers,
which could be equivalent to a group size
of 10 pandas, I would think.
Definitely go with the more the better.
I have 9 C. Aeneus both bronze and albino,
and they sure are fun to watch zooming around.


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I would prefer to have MORE of the smaller cory, if I can find them. I don't know how many I could fit in my 30 gallon, oh, and as the thread started, I also have ONE angel..., and plan on getting a bristlenose or two later.

Well, in 30g, if they are the only
bottom fish, you could easily go with 10 pandas,
or if you went with a dwarf cory like pygmaeus or
hasbrosus, you could easily stock 12-14,
maybe even more.
Hasbrosus average 3/4-1 inches, females up
to 1.5 inches, pygmaeus both genders average
3/4-1 inch.
Pandas about 1.5-2 inches.


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Smallest Corys of the lot are Corydoras hastatus. (the Latin hasta, meaning 'spear', refers to the marking on the tail which resembles a spear head) and Corydoras pygmaeus (which differs from hastatus in having a prominent horizontal stripe). Then you have Corydoras cochui, Corydoras habrosus (which resembles cochui but there are key differences), and Corydoras panda is next in line. After those species you will be looking at rarities such as the sky high desirable but ludicrously expensive Corydoras weitzmani (here in the UK these things are £20 EACH ... at current exchange rates you would be looking at $38 per fish if you went with weitzmani - yeep) and Corydoras loxozonus, plus oddities such as Corydoras elegans (the only Cory that doesn't adopt the 'T' position when mating).

There's an interesting history behind these fishes, by the way. Corydoras hastatus was the first of the dwarf Corys to be named, way back in 1868 by Eigenmann & Eigenmann. Corydoras cochui was named in 1954 by Myers & Weitzman, Corydoras habrosus in 1960 by Weitzman, and Corydoras pygmaeus as late as 1966 by Knaack. Corydoras panda was the last of the small Corys in the list to be named, in 1971 by Nijssen and Isbrucker. Tabulate the fishes along with maximum length and date of naming, and something interesting arises:

hastatus 30mm [1868]
cochui 35mm (F) but more usually 30mm [1954]
habrosus 35mm [1960]
pygmaeus 30mm [1966]
panda 55mm (F) [1971]

pygmaeus isn't actually smaller than hastatus, which was named nearly 100 years earlier, and is separated from its close neighbour by habrosus and cochui, which bear striking similarities to each other to the untrained eye. The key difference is that habrosus has a black spot at the base of the anal fin (absent in cochui), and the irregular broken band along the body forms 4 or 5 irregular spots in cochui, while that of habrosus only forms 2 or 3 spots. After this quarter of dwarf Corys, along came panda, which, while bigger than the others, shares the same tendency to be avowedly social and require a good sized group in the aquarium to be happy. This applies to ALL the five species discussed in this history section - you should NEVER keep fewer than 8 if you can, and ideally more. Heidi once had a big bunch of habrosus in her 125 gallon along with a manic collection of Bandit Corys (metae I think) and they were almost as nutty as my Pandas because she kept a big group of them.

Basically, the requirements for all five of these species are pretty similar - good sized group (8 minimum), clean substrate given regular gravel vacs, plenty of decor features to keep them stimulated (bogwood arches with Java Moss growing upon them are a good idea in an aquarium containing the smaller Corys, as are gnarled bits of bogwood with cave provision) and companions that won't harass them unduly. Give them this combination of housing features, and they'll be lively little fishes that provide hours of vieing entertainment - Pandas in particular, which are, in a decent sized group, akin to the little animated Lemmings from the computer game once their sense of fun takes off!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

well i have not been on this web page for a few months so this post is a bit late but i thought i would share anyway i HAD 3 angels they came from a tank that was set up for 5 years and thoes 3 angels were there for most of that time i dont know if it was 5 4 3 years or what but for a long time anyway i got the tank everything was great and fine but one of them (i named ozzy) who also happens to be the best looking of the 3 would pick on all the fish not just the angles and he was really mean. one day i woke up turned the lights on in my tank and i found a dead angel fish in my tank (this one was the second best looking angel and also had a messed up mouth it was on the side of his face) and ozzy would always bite him. i didnt know if he died becasue of ozzy or his mouth or just being old so i didnt put to much thought into it cause i didnt know. Then for about a month ozzy was picking on my black ghost knife about a moth after that started i found him dead. i have now lost 5 fish over the past 3 months all who ozzy was picking on. i have moved ozzy into a 10 gallon tank that he has all to himself. and since i have done that no more fish have died so you never know maybe you have ozzys mean twin brother and he was the one killing all your other angels (the only reason ozzy is in a 10 gallon is cause i dont want to get rid of him cause he is a nice looking fish and i dont have any other tanks to put him in right now lol) hope this story gives you something else to think about your angle fish

Purple,
a 10g tank is no place for an angelfish, im sorry
to say.
Please sell him to someone with a suitable home or
buy a 25g tall tank minimum.
These fish grow to 8 inches snout to tail and up
to 14 inches tall, a 20x12x12 inch tank is nowhere near
sufficient for this size fish.
24x12x20 is the minimum tank size for an angelfish,
with 29g being even better.


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i know that but like i said in my post thats all i have for him right now i am going to get a bigger tank for him i just dont have the funds right at the moment thats all so please dont think that is a permanent home for him its just a temp till i can get a bigger tank

Well, I bought 4 emerald corys last night. They are really pretty. In 2 weeks I will get 3 or 4 more. The profile on here says they only get about 2.8 inches, is that pretty accurate? They really seem to be liking my all sand substrate, they are digging their noses down in it and pushing it around like little snow plows. My angel isnt bothering them at all, but he is hanging around the bottom of the tank more, I think he is wondering what all the commotion is!

i am thinking I may need to get a bigger tank soon, I also saw some stunning angelicus botias last night...., if they hadn't been $20 each, I probably would have bought those instead!

They only get about 2.8 inches? Wait till you see them filled out............ that is a lot of little catfish! I have 5 emeralds & 2 about that big. They look monsterous compared to the little ones you buy in the store.

If it says 2.8 on this site then I would assume that is pretty accurate. I'll bet they do like that sand! Mine should be so lucky. Your angel will hang around the bottom more at feeding time for them also. They love to steal the shrimp pellets & algea wafers from the catfish.

"i am thinking I may need to get a bigger tank soon, I also saw some stunning angelicus botias last night...., if they hadn't been $20 each, I probably would have bought those instead!"
Uh oh..................MTS is setting in!!

Actually, I would probably be more likely to just use the one bigger tank. I like my tank to be where I can enjoy it all the time, and I certainly dont want a bunch of tanks in my living room! One big one would be fine with me. Plus, I am not thrilled with the low wattage lighting that came with my eclipse system. Its very liminting in what kind of plants I can grow. It would be cool to get a larger tank and really do it up right! And by larger I only mean about twice what I have now.

My idea of a large aquarium at the moment is, sadly, constrained by wallet size and house size. Howwever, if money and space were no object, I'd be thinking about that 12ft long reef tank in a basement mimicking David Saxby's monster reef ... in case you haven't heard about that one Tankgrrl, David Saxby is a guy living in London who has a reef aquarium that is about the size of my kitchen ... do a Google search on "David Saxby" and when you see pics of his utterly gigantic aquarium, be prepared to gasp in awe ... I've described this system at length in the Marine section of the FP forums, and believe me, this is an aquarium constructed on an almost industrial scale!

Mind you, I'd still love to do a 6ft version of the Panda Fun Palace - because then I could have some South American Dwarf Cichlids in there with the other fishes ... and BIG shoals of Characins.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Oh, that is not at all what I mean when I say bigger tank! Lol. I could NEVER have the dedication to do the upkeep on that kind of tank, though it is exquisite! It's enough for my to do my pwc's on my 30 gallon! I was thinking more along the lines of a 55 gallon... just so I could fit some more fish in. I feel so limited with my tank size now. But at the time I got it, it was all I could afford, but now....

Emerald corys, well depends. Are they Bronze Corys,
species Corydoras Aeneus, these fish grow to 3.5-4 inches.
2.8 is probably a low average.
I have a large albino cory the bronze cory species that
is now reaching 3 inches, and shes still growing. Shes only 5 years old or so.
The true emerald cory, Brochis Splendens, which isnt
really even a cory at all, but just looks like one,
grows even larger, with 6 inches being about the maximum,
and 4-5 inches the average.


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"The true emerald cory, Brochis Splendens, which isnt
really even a cory at all, but just looks like one,
grows even larger, with 6 inches being about the maximum,
and 4-5 inches the average. "

I have 5 emerald & 5 bronze in my tank! It's going to look like wall to wall cory's!

Emerald not really a cory? Just looks & acts like one? Sounds odd to me! But oh well, as long as it cleans the tank.

Well, I don't know the latin name for the ones I got, but they look identical to the ones in the profile section here on FP. I guess I'll just have to wait and see how they turn out. That could be a good excuse to get a bigger tank... "Honey, I didn't know they were going to get THIS big!"

Bronze Cory cat:



Emerald Catfish Brochis Splendens



Article on PC about Brochis Splendens:

http://www.planetcatfish.com/cotm/cotm.php?article_id=229

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Yup......... those look like mine, more or less. I couldn' get your link to work but went to the site & found some articles about them. All I saw was they got to a size of size of 3.1 inches & another said about 3 1/2 inches. And one place said that they get larger than bronze cories & are more gregarius.

Doesn't really matter I guess.......... we got what we got & will live with them no matter how big they get. There sure were a lot of corys on that site! If I ever get another smaller tank I might get brave enough to go into a pet store & see what cory's they have. I live in the midwest, so think the selection around here would'nt be that great. But still........... would be something to consider.

As it is, I have hubby get most of my fish when he goes out of town cause I'm afraid to go myself. There will be so many pretty tanks & so many pretty fish I'm afraid I will be disatisfied with what I have now!

Thanks Sneaky!

Well, I am confused now. Mine are definately not as dark as the top picture, but not as light as the bottom picture. Hmm, I will have to wait til tomorrow and do another comparison when the tank lights come back on!

The diagnostic feature that allows Brochis and Corydora to be told apart is the dorsal fin. Corydoras species have a short, fairly tall dorsal fin with a small number of rays (a typical count being 7 or 8, as in the case of Corydoras diphyes). Brochis species have a long dorsal fin with a considerably higher ray count (15-18 for Brochis multiradiatus, 10-12 for Brochis splendens).

Load these two links into separate browser tabs or windows, and alternate between viewing the two, in order to see the difference in the dorsal fin length:

Corydoras aeneus

Brochis splendens

I deliberately hunted down the images that made this difference easy to spot for the beginners, by the way.

You will also notice that Brochis splendens has a more angular snout than the majority of regularly available domesticated Corydoras species - however, there are some long-snouted corydoras that originate from cooler hillstreams, but these have a distinctly 'horse faced' appearance when compared with the Brochis species - an example of a long snouted Corydoras exhibiting this 'horse faced trait well is Corydoras semiaquilus, which shares this trait with Corydoras amapensis, C. pastazensis, C. treitlii, C. simulatus, C. septentrionalis and to a lesser extent Corydoras stenocephalus. The long-snouted 'horse faced' Corys all need more specialised conditions than the 'round faced' ones such as Corydoras aeneus, C. paleatus, C. metae and other commonly available species - the 'horse faced' Corys inhabit cooler, more rapidly flowing and better oxygenated water in the main. The big exception to the rule of course is Corydoras panda - a round faced Cory that lives in cooler waters and has a preference for temperatures around 23 degrees Celsius, with heat stress becoming a potentially life-shortening danger if temperatures rise above 28 degrees Celsius.

Oh, as for compatibility with Cichlids, Brochis splendens is a fine fish to keep alongside the likes of Keyhole Cichlids and Festivums in larger aquaria. However, compatibility with some of the more strongly territorial species such as Convicts is best described as 'experimental' - attempt it if you wish, but be prepared to rehouse the Brochis in a less stressful environment at a moment's notice if the Cichlids treat them as intruders to be dispatched!

[Edited for broken tags]


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I know what you mean tankgrrrl. I think these fish can differ slightly in coloration. Of my 5 bronze corys I don't think any two are colored exactly the same. Mine are more smudgy colored like the one Cali put up. And one of them is kind of dark all over!

My emeralds seem pretty much the same except for the two large ones. Their coloation is darker than the smaller ones. So for whatever reason, I'm thinking a coloration difference is normal......... at least for our aquarium fish. IMHO

If you will notice......... if you get any natural daylight on your tank at all........... I do for just a short while in late afternoon........... the fishes color really comes out & shows up very pretty under natural daylight.

Thanks for the comparison Cali, that really helped! Now I am certain that I have the brochis splendens. There are more fin rays than I can count on mine because they won't sit still! Lol.

As far as their coloration goes Patty, I have 4 so far, and they are all similar except one is quite a bit darker. The tank they had them in at Petsmart had black gravel substrate, and they were almost completely black in there. You could hardly see them! Once I got them home they lightened up considerably in my tank.