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You'll be hard pressed to find any corydoradine that cannot withstand relatively cool water.

I would have to go to the big city to find pandas Cali. & don't even know if they would have them. Sounds like my bronze are about half the price anyway. They'll do, as I'm not too particular about what kind of cories I have & I am what you would call "cheap".

Last night I saw a cory acting weird by the aquarium glass. When I looked closer I saw eggs! A small pile stuck onto the aquarium glass & a little farther down a larger pile. I was surprised to see that, as only about 5 days ago they were about to freeze to death. I guess the temp. change had something to do with it. It was nice to see that my remaining fish are happy again after what they had been through.

In the wild, a temperature drop ius a spawning stimulus for many Corydoras species, so perhaps you should not be so surprised at finding that your Bronze Corys have spawned!

Basically, any well fed and well cared for Corys will spawn after a water change, if that water change results in a temperature drop of around 2 degrees C. The reason is this. In the wild, a temperature drop occurs when the rains start falling at the onset of the rainy season. In the months prior to this moment, the Corys have been living in water that has become increasingly warm, polluted with fish wastes (from the Corys as well as the other fishes) and depleted in oxygen. The sudden appearance of serveal hundred thousand gallons of clean, oxygenated water falling out of the sky is the trigger for a lot of invertebrates to start breeding like mad, and so, there will be lots of food for new baby Corys to eay, so the parents too start spawning like there's no tomorrow. Because that water has fallen from clouds that have just risen over the Andes Mountain range (which means the clouds have risen to 25,000 feet above sea level) the rainwater that's falling is pretty cold ... it warms up a bit as it falls through the warmer and denser air nearer the ground, but it's still cooler than the waters in which the fishes are living. Result? Temperature drop.

The rainwater is also heavily oxygenated (with it being cold) and so the fishes suddenly find that they are under a LOT less respiratory stress. Whereas during the dry season the fishes were struggling for enough space and oxygen, suddenly with the coming of the rains they have clean water and oxygen in abundance - and pretty soon billions of small invertebrates will be putting in an appearance so that there's a glut of food ... the ideal time to start breeding.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

As always, you're right on with the explanations.

Even though they are best kept in Schools, they are really hardy and will still do fine as a single or pair. There behaviour though I think is much more interesting when kept in groups of 6 or more. There have been reports of some of these little fish living 25 years or more too if provided with good water quality.

17 years experience with freshwater.