Cory fry - pics

[cwt]

This post relates to an earlier one about cory eggs, and also to provide an example to a question in the photography section. These guys are about 5 days out of the eggs now; moving in rare bursts of energy, mostly hiding in the darker spots of the breeding net. The 'big' mass in the second pic is an algae wafer that did not get to the bottom of the tank... d'oh. I don't think they mind it too much.

[cwt]

I'll try to document these as time permits. 10 days along. Everybody has barbels now, a bit more color and a bit more motion, but I think they need cover before they can feel confident to go places.



peppered cories (paleatus) in case I didn't mention that before.
Edit: tried a few side pics through the breeder net, but they look terrible. The fish do have developing front fins, and a tail fin now; tough to see from above; will probably do the next pic in another week or so.

[darkmule27]

None of the pictures are loading not sure if it's my computer or something else?

[JustOneMore20]

I can see them.

They are so cute! Congrats!

[newfound77951]

Very cool! Were you trying to breed them or did you get eggs by accident?

[cwt]

These eggs came by accident. I have 3 peppered cories, which I casually refer to as '1, 2 and 3', because they're all different sizes. I think 3, the largest, is the more mature female who dumped the eggs. I had recently started to feed them sinking algae wafers, which was a change from the loose flake and pellet food I use for the other fish in the tank. Then I took in a rainbow shark from my stepmom's classroom tank. 48 hours later, eggs on the glass! So it's either the new food or the perceived competition, I guess.

Latest inventory is 7 fry, might be 8 but they hide a lot.

Edit: Darkmule, if you have a network or PC that blocks flickr.com, the pics may not show up. I use that as a pic host so I can post pics of various sizes without making them a local attachment.

[darkmule27]

I've never had issues with flickr before. Odd. But I bet they're adorable! Congrats!

[cwt]

Since fat momma cory has laid another batch of eggs today, figured it was time for an update; I've tried to update this thread as time went along, to show how the cory fry from March have grown... but they're tough to find in the crypts and moss! They've been shy, since only two of the batch survived, and intermediate pics have been tough to get. The ones that are left look OK to me though. Here's one of the two left, with shrimp pellet in front of him/her for relative size. This one is almost 1" long including fins, the other one's a tad shorter.

[HN1]

Very cool!

[happygirl65]

Very cool! I love the pics, nice job!

[cwt]

Showing the parents here, with new eggs. The juveniles don't really hang around them much, possibly because of fat momma cory's imposing size (she's in the back here). I'm not sure if this is the 'T' position they talk about when cories breed, she's pushing him into the corner, which they normally don't do. As for what 'got them going', a big storm front has passed in the last 24 hours... maybe the change in pressure did something to them.

[Mystery]

I hope you can get their pics I am really hoping my pygmy corys will breed and have been mixing up their food to try and encourage them.

[cwt]

Notes:
1) I missed one, there are actually 3 survivors in the original batch of fry. Two are the size shown, one is a tiny bugger about 5/8" long. Male, maybe?
2) Got a shock when I found out my pH in the tank was in the 6's. My tap water is 7.6-7.7 consistently, so either I'm overfeeding or something's changed. I did a PWC and raised it up about 1/2 a pH. Don't know the cause but this sudden lowering might have pushed the cories to drop the eggs.

[mom2reds]

cool pics thanks for sharing

[aveldina]

I realize this thread is super old but the photos are exactly the same as what I'm looking at right now! I've had cory eggs appear in my tank this week and we picked up a breeder net very similar to yours, I'm hoping I can end up with some cute fry of my own in the next week. Do you mind if I ask what you feed the cory fry? Did you keep them in your main cory tank the entire time?

[cwt]

As long as you don't have any bad algae issues, the breeder net will work fine. Just keep in mind that like the adults, the fry like to hide, and may spend a lot of their day under the plastic frame of the net.

For that batch I fed them Hikari First bites, or OSI spirulina flakes crumbled up very finely. After they grew a bit, I threw in a shrimp pellet or two, and once it disintegrated, they chewed on it a bit.

I kept them in the net for about a month, after which I decided to let them go free in the tank to forage for themselves. Note that I don't have any strong predators in that tank, if you do, you may want to let them grow up elsewhere.

It's funny that this thread comes alive again, as I have new eggs on the tank wall as of last night. I transplanted another female with a big belly to my 20G tank but she hasn't dropped any there yet. Corys, the fish that keeps on giving. ;0

Edit: if you do a forum search for 'cory fry' or cory fry pics, you'll find other threads I've posted in. Seems that my 'big momma' cory has laid eggs about every 2-2.5 months since I got her, so I'm getting a lot of experience with these little guys. The last batch left me three 'surprise' fry that survived when I didn't do anything special after a big egg lay; at that time I figured the tank was full enough. So I currently have 3 half-inchers scurrying around the 29G. When you feed just make sure the food is getting down to the net where the fry are.

[aveldina]

Thanks! I checked this morning and the eggs are gone! I can see two fry for sure, the third egg is gone as well but I haven't seen three yet. My order with liquid fry food showed up yesterday so I'll give that a try to start them.

Just to make sure I've got this right, I should wait a day or two to feed them so that they absorb what's left of the eggs first correct?

Did you leave an air stone running in the net after they hatched or did you take it out? (if you had one?) They seem to be hiding under the weight on the air stone.

I'm super excited, time to start taking pictures hehe!

[cwt]

You first posted on the 10th, and my cory eggs always seem to take 4 days to hatch, so I would guess by now that your fry will be done with their egg leftovers very soon. If you feed a little of the liquid fry food and they don't go for it yet, just try a little each day until they show interest.

I don't use air stones, all my tanks have hang-on-back filters. Cory fry swim surprisingly well in a bit of current, so I didn't really make any tank changes, except that I used the net that first time. If you move that stone, make sure they have another hiding spot.

My latest batch of eggs are also gone (almost, I moved a few to another tank as a test), no obvious fry yet. Probably hiding, if any made it.

[aveldina]

My first set, from the posting on the 10th, were not good and quickly showed fuzz. We found more eggs a couple of days later and scooped them into the net. Two out of five went white but three were good and those three hatched sometime during the morning of the 15th. It looked like what was left of the eggs was almost gone last night so I'm going to try giving them a tiny bit of fry food tonight maybe to see if there's interest.

I have a HOB filter as well, a friend read an post somewhere suggesting the air for better water flow through the netting. They seem to like hiding under it and around the edges so we'll keep it around. Incredible how tiny they are!

[convict78]

i have a 9 gal heavy planted tank with four corys in it.i have been hoping for fry but no luck.i also have a small bristle nose plec in there and wonder if it will eat the eggs if they lay them.any advise on how to help them along would be cool