I need to breed albino corydoras aeneus!

[EXM]

I need help breeding my albino corydoras aeneus. It isn't the actual breeding I'm having problems with. It's keeping and rearing the fry to adulthood or at least two months at sellable size.

[Fishyfanatic]

Moved to the Breeding Forum.

[fish_4_all]

Well what I did was to keep them in a net breeder for about 6 weeks after they hatched. They can be very difficult to keep alive once they hatch because they like to eat such small food. When they first hatched, I used small finely ground flake food along with vinegar eels and they did really well. I left the breeder net in the main tank although I think a smaller tank, 5 gallon with a seasoned sponge filter would work just fine, with no gravel or any substrate with some floatng plants or anacharis/elodea or hornwort. You also have to be very careful with algae. It worked great when it was just a little bit but the little guys seemed to really suffer if it to be too much. I think the oxygen levels dropped or the flow was too low from the algae clogging the netting.

The next stage, free swimming consisted of gindal worms and finely crushed flake, ground up shrimp pellets, ground algae wafers and whatever else I had that I could make small enough for them to eat.

Using this method, I got about an 85% survival rate from egg to free swimming. To adult, I got about a 65% survival rate but I think this was due to them being in the main tank and algae issues on the netting. If you have the room and can get one, a shallow tank, 6 inches deep and about 10 gallons would make a really nice hatching and freeswimming tank. A 5 gallon would work but there can be very large numbers as I am sure you have seen. The size of the tank/tanks will depend on how many you want to grow out to adult.

That is about all I can give you from what I have done that I remember. If there are other questions, please let me know and I will try to answer them.

[EXM]

Thank you for your help. What I am having problems with is Methalane Blue. I'm afraid it is killing my fry once they hatch. When I don't use it, the eggs hatch at 50% maybe. And I am not over dosing at all.

[fish_4_all]

Never used it so I can't say. I lost 12 eggs out of 100+ without it, and that was probably being a little rough removing them from the glass. I didn't use any chemicals at all for them, just let it take it's course. I figured if I was having that kind of success and had 100+ in 8 days then 50% losses were ok, then I had 80+ hatch and was realy not prepared for the success rate. I don't have room to raise 100's of them to adult. It might be better to let the natural selection process take out the weaker eggs to keep the genetics stronger. As for the fry, I wouldn't use anything to treat the tank or whatever they are in. I plan to breed BN and when I get to that point I will have a well established 5 gallon for the fry if I need to remove them. Nothing else will be done except feeding and water changes. Again, and I know it sounds cruel but the strongest survive allowing for stronger specimens to sell back to the LFS or whomever gets them.

[EXM]

I have heard of the methalane Blue killing the fry and keeping the eggs void of fungus. Any comments?