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My corydora (agassizii or Brevirostris... looks the same to me!!) lost his companion and he need to either find a new home, or I need to find one or two of same to keep him company. I live in Portsmouth, NH. Could someone adopt him, or share one or two of their own?

Thank you,
AnnieM

they like to be in groups of 6+ so u need to get 5 more.

ask your LFS if they can order them... if not you need to post a wanted add in the classifieds.

and corries like to be in schools of 6 or more so you'll need at least five more.

\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"

Gosh, thanks for the information! At the LFS the info all says three or more, but I'll see what I can do. Do you think a somewhat similar species, like Julii, would be close enough to companion my fish? They are available locally.

Corys don't really mind being in mixed groups. Mixed cory schools are okay if you can't get pure ones.

Agassizi are fairly common, I agree that you should be able to order some in, although you may have to wait. Most corys appreciate a large school; in the wild they may group in the hundreds!

As a fun fact, the cory sold as "julii" is almost definitely trilineatus. Julii is apparently quite rare.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

yea the julli re rare and hard to see the differnece in them i got my dad some confirmed wild caught jullis! like 30 fo them for a 125 gallon aguriaum lol.

Thank you everyone for the tips. I'll see if my LPS can order a shipment of one of these subspecies.

If you can build up a decent shoal of your Corys, be prepared for fun and games.

Basically, the bigger your shoal, the happier your Corys will be. This applies particularly to what I term the "avowedly social" species, which usually means the smaller ones such as pygmaeus, hastatus, cochui and habrosus. Another avowedly social species is Corydoras panda, which exhibits VERY marked improvement in liveliness and temperament if you can build up the numbers. 6 of these are somewhat lackadaisical, 8 of them liven up noticeably, and by the time you have 14 of them, it's non stop comedy frolicking day in, day out!



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Hi Everyone,

So much to learn! Is there a classified segment on Fishprofiles?

Thank you,
Annie

Calilasseia,

Do you agree that corys of more than one subspecies can bond okay?

Thanks again,
Annie

Hi,
Welcome to Fish Profiles.
Yes, there is a Classified" section on FP.
Click on "Forums" and skim down the list or,
click here (for now):

http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/forum.aspx?id=20

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Not to be nitpicky, but the different types of Corys are all different species; Corydoras is a genus and different types of corys such as panda, aeneus, and agassizi are different species.

Your best bet might be to talk to your local fish store if you want to get fish. FP is a worldwide site with a fair number of people from Australia and a couple from the UK, which doesn't help you very much; also, the Classifieds here are unfortunately not extremely busy. Plus, I like talking to the LFS because then they can order in a large number of fish, I can see what I'm buying, I can pick the best ones, and there isn't an outrageous shipping cost.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

Oops! Thank you for the correction about species and subspecies! And for the advice about the classifieds. I did place a posting there just now.

I have sought information from a couple of my LFSs on various matters over the past two years, and had mixed results. For exapmple, I was told my green corys would mature to be like my spotted one, and I was told I could stop treating an old case of ick as soon as the visible spots were gone. So I have become more careful.... trying to cross check facts.

Annie, it is possible to put together a mixed shoal of Corydoras catfishes, but if you can build decent sized shoals of the same species, this makes for particularly happy Corys.

Species that bear a considerable resemblance to each other are likely to make for a happier mix if you can't obtain a shoal of one species for various logistical reasons. So, for example, Corydoras agassizii will mix well with corydoras ambiacus (these two are difficult even for professionals to tell apart!), and the long-snouted Corydoras amapensis will mix well with Corydoras semiaquilis, C. septentrionalis, C. solox and C. treitlii, as all of these bear a fair amount of resemblance to each other. Likewise, you can expect Corydoras haraldschultzi to mix pretty well with Corydoras sterbai (these two species look very much alike except to the trained eye) (the spots on the head of haraldschultzi are dark on a light background, in sterbai this is reversed), and similarly, you can expect Corydoras axelrodi to mix well with Corydoras lxozonus (you have to look close to tell these two apart as well!), and Corydoras metae will mix well with Corydoras melini (again, you have to look close to tell them apart).

Oh, and if you want to see just how many Corydoras catfishes there are to choose from, click on this link and take a peek at the thumbnails over at Planet Catfish - there's something like 120 species that have been described by science, and goodness knows how many C-numbers awaiting description!

Mind you, even a mixed bag of species will aggregate for company if they don't have sufficient numbers of their own species, but if you are ever in the position to be able to put together decent sized groups of different species (say, for example, 12 each of Corydoras metae, Corydoras trilineatus and corydoras sodalis), then you'll notice that they'll hang out preferentially in their own species groups, coming together in a huge melee when it's feeding time in the aquarium!

Basically, if you can find more Corydoras agassizii to go with your current specimen, that'll make them all happy, the more the merrier, and if you can upgrade to a bigger aquarium specifically to allow you to have a group of 10 or 12 of them, then chances are you'll see spawning taking place in fairly short order once they've settled in and you start giving them regular water changes and gravel vacs. Treat them as shoaling fishes and they'll reward you with lots of comedy frolicking behaviour and the patter of tiny fins.

[Edited for broken tag]

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Hi Calilasseia and everybody,

That's really interesting information;thank you!

I checked that link, and it's a great bunch of snapshots of cories. Now I am less sure of what I have, though!

So Calilasseia, you say these (presumably wild imported) species actually will breed in captivity? Are there people selling captive bred cores more or less like mine?

Maybe I'll get time to figure out how to post a photo and start a new thread with"name this cory" as a title!
AnnieM

Yes, a significant number of Corydoras species have been bred in captivity. I'm a proud breeder of Panda Corys, for example!

However, there are some Corys that remain a challenge even to the veterans in the game. Usually, these are hillstream species with specialised water requirements, and are usually among the long-snouted species. Though some of the long-snouted species such as Corydoras semiaquilus have been bred, others remain tough nuts to crack, usually because their native waters are so mineral deficient that in order to persuade them to spawn, one has to resort to de-ionised water from a laboratory to perform the water changes! However, once those 'tough nuts' have been cracked, and aquarium bred specimens are available, chances are they'll be a lot less tough in the future.

If you can pick up any of the following books:

Book 1

Book 2

then these will probably astound you with how much IS known about the breeding of Corydoras catfishes, and will also advise you about which species are still awaiting the cracking of the secret of spawning them by the experts in the field. A name to look out for in this regard is Ian Fuller, who is one of the UK's top Corydoras, and who maintains this website (it's a subscription affair I'm afraid). His articles appear regularly in Practical Fishkeeping magazine in the UK, and chances are that he's forgotten more about Corydoras catfishes than many of us will ever know!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Hi Calilasseia,

That's very good news about the cory breeding possibilities,and quite interesting about the hil varieties. Wow, what a dilemma!

My little buddy is quite snub-nosed. I still mean to get him a couple of companions like or nearly like himself, but the sense of urgency is down a little, as he is interacting more with my two greens as they are getting bigger.

Thank you so much, Calilasseia and everybody who has posted.

Annie

AnnieM

Hi Everyone,

Well, I found that the lone cory is almost certainly an ambiacus, and yesterday we were able to bring three companions of same species home! So we have now a total of six.

So far the "adolescent" sized green cories are by far the most active and have been since they came is considerably smaller many weeks ago.

Again, thanks to all for your input!

AnnieM