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Hey all. My pepper cories are breeding. I have 6 of them and I was looking at my tank and 4 of them were going nuts. I walked over and I have 13 eggs on my tank glass at the moment. They are still running around and in the little "T". I don't have an extra tank but would like to help these guys live. Any ideas of what I can do. I have a couple cherry barbs and a couple Blue Acara in the same tank. Thanks

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Live life to it's fullest
Who knows what tomorrow holds

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get a critter keeper, and a blubbler

Without some kind of spare aquarium to transfer them to (or at a push, an old style livebearer breeding trap) then the Blue Acaras in particular will enjoy some caviar.

However, for future reference (after all, once they've spawned, there's a very good chance they'll repeat this), you'll need some hints and tips. In my case I've transferred Panda eggs to a nursery aquarium with reasonable results.

Before proceeding, read ALL STEPS below, and make note in advance of the tools and materials you will need, and when they need to come into play. Copy and paste this to a Notepad file and print it off for reference along the way, so you can add your own annotations to the printed copy as you learn.

Step 1 : You will need something that has a blade like edge to it. If you have one of those algae scrapers into which a real ife old fashioned razor blade can be fitted, then you have a head start here. Otherwise, you might have to chase up someone with a credit card and see if they have a defunct (i.e., no longer valid for purchase) one you can borrow. While credit cards are often cited as useful here, in my experience the edge isn't perfect - it needs a bit of filing to give it a 'slope'. If you have an algae scraper plus a razor blade, then you will find the following steps a LOT easier.

Step 2 : You will also need a small container into which you can deposit the eggs. The kind of plastic tub that is used to contain 35mm photographic film is ideal for this.

Step 3 : Using the algae scraper, very slowly and gently ease the blade between the egg and the glass. This is the part that takes patience, a willingness to experience some discomfort, and some manual dexterity. This is the FIDDLY TEDIOUS BIT, or FTB (another fishy acronym for you to learn! ). The reason I call it this is simple: it's bad enough when you only have, say, 15 to 20 Panda eggs to transfer to their new home. With Peppered Corys, you could end up with 250 of them ... Once you have the blade under the egg, the egg should adhere to the blade. However, as you will learn about so many things in this world, there is, frustratingly, a gap between the wonderful world of 'should be' and the frequently less desirable world of 'is'. Sometimes that gap is a yawning chasm. In this case, you will find that either [1] the egg refuses to part company from the glass, and you end up just moving it along the glass, or [2] the egg drops off into the gravel. To deal with the latter case, you have to position your small tub to catch it. I said you'd need some dexterity didn't I?

Step 4 : If your egg DID stick to the blade, now you have to transfer it to your small container. Again, an exercise involving a considerable learning curve as to the awkwardness of adhesive fish eggs from a handling perspective. For the transfer purpose, a small artist's paintbrush could be useful. However, you might also find that the egg sticks to the brush (sigh), in which case it takes a fair amount of messing around to get it into the small container. I never said it would be easy, did I?

Step 5 : Now comes the critical part. The reason for the small container is this. When you're transferring fish eggs from point A to point B, the one thing you do NOT want is for the eggs to be exposed to atmospheric air at any time. This will probably kill them. So, you have to lift your small container, plus egg, plus some aquarium water, carefully out of the original aquarium, then transfer it with due care and attention to the destination aquarium. Or, if you don't have one of those, to a livebearer breeding trap floating in the original aquarium.

Step 6 : Once you have the egg in the destination aquarium, you have to repeat Steps 3 to 5 above for all the eggs you are trying to save. With a big spawn, you won't save them all. Content yourself with saving, say, 20 to 30 for your first venture into this realm, and try saving larger numbers later on when the Corys spawn again. Believe me, the job is a seriously fiddly one, and after saving 20 to 30 eggs, you will feel physically fatigued. Not because you've lifted heavy weights, but because you've had to maintain precise muscle control and coordination in a tricky environment. You might consider it appropriate to insert two minute rest breaks after every 5 eggs for your first outing. Believe me, a fiddly job like this can take it's toll on your well being!

Step 7 : Now you have to add your antifungal agent. If you don't have one to hand, then you should expect a fair number of losses even if you've been careful with the transfer. if you DO have an antifungal agent to hand, you have to calculate the dosage for your volume of water. If you're using a breeding trap as your nursery, this will complicate matters a lot, because most antifungals are packaged in such a manner as to be dispensed into a full sized aquarium, with instructions such as "5 drops per gallon" on the bottle. Your breeding trap will probably hold less than a litre of water unless it's a really big one (these plastic breeding traps made pretty poor maternity wards for guppies!) and so calculating the antifungal dose for that will be a mental exercise requiring some care. Once you have calculated your dose, add the antifungal, then gently create some turbulence in the water to mix it.

Step 7 : Wait 4 days for the eggs to hatch. you'll tell during this period which eggs are sound and which are not. Unsound eggs will develop a white opacity fairly quickly, and may even start to develop some fungal 'fur' upon them that is visible to the naked eye. Remove those with an eyedropper. Sound eggs that are likely to hatch and provide you with fry stay translucent, then after a while develop two noticeable dark spots. These are the embryonic eyes. Eggs in this condition are said to be 'eyed up'. If you end up with eggs that are 'eyed up', baby raising is imminent, even if you only have a few babies to raise.

After you have covered this ground, you will now be into the stage of looking after your Cory rugrats. This is a fairly intensive process if you want a good number of them to survive. This is best left to another thread.

For the future, try and acquire some Java Moss. The reason for this being simple. Corys like to spawn in it. Put a loose ball of the stuff in the aquarium, and next time round, they'll deposit a fair number of eggs in that. Which makes egg removal a LOT easier, because all you have to do then is guide the ball of Java Moss, plus eggs, into a container underwater, then transfer the lot in one go. FAR less tedious I think you'll agree. Your Corys won't deposit ALL of their eggs in there, but you could be lucky and see them deposit a fair number in there, in which case saving those eggs is going to be a cinch in comparison to detaching them from the glass.

Now that you have read this, you will probably smile wryly when I suggest that teenage boys should be given this exercise as part of their education. Along with the admonition that if they think this is hard, the labour involved in looking after a baby is AT LEAST 100 times greater, and involves continuing that output of labour over a time span of 20 years. Which should give them pause for thought next time they're fooling around with their girlfriends.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

WOW, thanks for the info. I will keep it for future reference. I'm sad to say though that when I checked on my tank today all the eggs were gone. I'm pretty sure it is due to the reason stated above. I guess if they spawn again I will go with the above advice. I will most likely though go with a breeding container as I don't have room for another tank at the moment. Thanks again for the help.

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Live life to it's fullest
Who knows what tomorrow holds

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I had a lion head goldfish and a shubunkin goldfish that decided to spawn once. I was lucky enough to catch them before too many eggs were dropped. I grapped a large tupperware container and let them do their business. After all the eggs were dropped I put them back in the tank and ran up to my LFS and grabbed up a small five gallon plastic tank and an airstone and put the tupper ware container with all the eggs directly into the new tank. It wasnt the best setup but it seemed to work for the time being. About 75% of my eggs hatched. I kept a couple and took the rest to my LFS when they got a little bigger.

Well the cories have done it again. I was supprised that they spawned again so soon. My fiancee is the one who saw the eggs. I went ahead and used the ideas from above and hoipe tohave at least a couple little ones soon. I will post again and let you all know what happens in a few days. Thanks again.

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Live life to it's fullest
Who knows what tomorrow holds

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Bet it was a really fiddly job though ... not least because Peppered Corys lay eggs in batches of 5 or 6 at a time, unlike my Pandas (who only lay one at a time).

If you can obtain some Java Moss, this will make life a LOT easier. You can just toss a ball of it into the aquarium, and harvest a bunch of eggs from that, because they'll use it, even though Peppered Corys tend to be somewhat indiscriminate when choosing egg deposition sites. That's one feature of my Pandas that makes life easy - they usually prefer to lay in Java Moss, and any eggs that appear on the glass ALWAYS appear immediately adjacent to their favourite Java Moss clump.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002