Jump to content

Leave a tank alone


Baccus

Recommended Posts

One of my 4ft tanks has a thriving population of mostly peppered corydoras, some other types incuding false julii and Emerald as well as some Riffle shrimp, Borneo Suckers and Otocinclus, and some threadfin rainbows just to mix it up a bit. This tank only really has general tank maintenance done, which is usually just drops and tops almost NEVER plant trimming or removal. The fish seem to like the wild jungle and the peppered corys usually reward me with a few fry.

I had been noticing some partly grown cory fry in the tank and was glad to see that the corys wheren't eating all their eggs, but tonight for the first time I spied a much smaller albino cory fry that seems to have taken up residence around the base of one of the Java ferns. The only albino cory I have my sister gave me, it is a long fin, but only its pecteral fins are long its dorsal fin is normal length. I do have some longfin normal peppered and both their dorsal and pecteral fins are super long. I had thought the albino my sister gave me was most likely an albino bronze, but it looks like I lucked out and its another peppered.

So here is one of the proud parents of my little guy.

P1090267_zps8elahr6c.jpg

and now the little CUTIE

P1090271_zpsmtvfmyga.jpg

Because the tank is pretty wild its any bodies guess if there are any more little albino bubs getting about.

Just goes to show you the surprises a wild tank can supply.

Edited by Baccus
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yup, sometimes just leaving a tank to do it's thing does pay off, my tank was overgrown and running wild and before I knew it I had 16 juvi Common Bristlenose.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member

Nature isn't always neat and tidy - the wild look works well! My best shrimp breeding tank is a jungle - I don't like it but the shrimp do!

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Corys are one of my favourites. It's awesome to see them thrive and breed. I would love mine to breed at some stage. Their fry are so cute. Well done!!! :-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks jc12, mine are almost always spawning so much so I had to shift 25 to another tank. The fry certianly are cute.

Just noticed in the fry picture if you look closely you can see one of my adult peppereds peeking out under the leaves in the background.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

My Pygmy corked are currently spawning. But in a 200L community planted tank I'm never gonna catch em!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Foxpuppet said:

My Pygmy corked are currently spawning. But in a 200L community planted tank I'm never gonna catch em!

What are your water parameters if you don't mind sharing? I have been thinking of trying to spawn panda and pygmy corys.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Leaving the tank alone" is a skill I am yet to master, but really need to!

 

I went low tech for a reason, and really want a 'natural' look - not scaped or trimmed to perfection. 

 

But I cant keep my bloody hands out of the tank!!!!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member

@ DemonCat I'm the same I can't keep my hands out of my tanks. It used to be a common saying on here that people would warn me " Ineke step away from your tanks" . I can't help fiddling but I am better than I was !  The shrimp must be happy because they breed well with the extra hiding places etc.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, ineke said:

@ DemonCat I'm the same I can't keep my hands out of my tanks. It used to be a common saying on here that people would warn me " Ineke step away from your tanks" . I can't help fiddling but I am better than I was !  The shrimp must be happy because they breed well with the extra hiding places etc.

I am adding some more plants soon with a small rearrangment of rocks, but then have a forced break as I go overseas for a few weeks. Hopefully this period away from the tank helps with this 'disease' of tank fiddling when I get back!!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member

Good luck with that! I was away for 2 months and made up for lost time when I got back!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Got home from work... First thing I do.... Move stuff. My fish and shrimp must hate me.

5 minutes ago, ineke said:

Good luck with that! I was away for 2 months and made up for lost time when I got back!

Thanks. Brand new canister. Will clean prior to leaving.... Surely it will be OK for three weeks!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 15 February 2016 at 1:56 AM, jc12 said:

What are your water parameters if you don't mind sharing? I have been thinking of trying to spawn panda and pygmy corys.

I'll have to get back to you on that as I just did a 50% water change LOL ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

thought it was due time for an update on the little cutie albino cory fry, he is now nicely matured and starting to show breeding interest in the pack of other corys.

And in another tank because I have been very good and let the weeds go pretty insane my Pacific Blue Eyes have rewarded me with at least 3 tiny new fry I just spied this evening. I am hoping that these fry survive the attentions of their parents, I am certainly excited to see them successfully spawning in their tank.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are Corys hard to breed and keep they have always interested me but have never taken the step to keep them.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, OzShrimp said:

Are Corys hard to breed and keep they have always interested me but have never taken the step to keep them.

 

Hey Oz I don't think they would be hard; one of my earliest aquarium experiences resulted in an accidental cory mating. They left eggs on the glass which were left alone by the other fish including endler guppies, red cherries and snails... then some time later i had about 5 babies.. somehow 2 of the young later perished leaving 3 surviving offspring but honestly I was very random in my approach to aquarium keeping back then.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It really depends on which species of corydoras you get, Peppered I find easy as well as Strebia but never seem to have much luck with Bronze and Panda. The main things to remember with corydoras is that.....

A. They love a crowd of their own kind, mixing different species can work in that they wont fight but they wont really gel and bond as a species only school will. Eg, Best sight I ever saw was 54 young peppered corys I had bred tightly schooling and swimming laps of an old bathtub I used as a pond.

B. They love and need some protein in their diet and can not be expected to just "clean up" after other fish etc.They are also very partial to certain live foods like Bloodworms, Blackworms and Mosquito wrigglers but seem happy to leave shrimp and snails alone. They will also nibble at algae wafers.

C. Mixing some species of corydoras can be bad because some will readily hybridise Pandas are apparently well known for doing this.

D. Corydoras come from many sections of the Amazon and surrounding rivers, some handle cooler water while some can tolerate quite warm water. It is claimed that Strebia particularly can handle the heat that Discus are often kept at but really it is pushing their endurance a tad to far in my opinion.

E. Breeding usually entails ensuring you have at least 1 female and two male, condition them with lots of live foods (or fresh frozen not freeze dried) and other quality foods, then do a large water change and use water that is cooler than their tank water. This often triggers spawning, if you can do it in conjunction with a rain event coming through your region all the better. The catfish will often eat their eggs so best to rescue them and you can put the eggs in a tumbler or put them in a suspended net fry saver near the filter return. The fry are ready feeders and once they get past insy newborn (hatched) and start to look like mini copies of their parents they are just too darn cute for words.

I love corys and enjoy them as much as I like many Loach species, but if I ever get the chance (ie have the room) I would love to have some Hoplo catfish, they are related distantly to corys but amazingly make bubble nests like Siamese Figthers and Gourami. Catfish and loaches I fear are as addictive as Shrimp.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Join Our Community!

    Register today, ask questions and share your shrimp and fish tank experiences with us!

  • Must Read SKF Articles

  • Posts

    • sdlTBfanUK
      Thats a great photo, beautiful blue bolt, I hope it survived the molt without dropping the eggs! I think I can just about see some black dots (eyes) on the central egg but can't be 100% sure. I used to (and plan to again) do weekly water change of 10-15% but if you do too large or quick (not drip in new water) that would likely trigger a molt. What KH are they in, my new setup is sitting at (and refusing to budge) KH 3 and PH 7.5 so I may have to settle for neocaridina shrimp this time as opposed to the caridina I want, though not looking/deciding just yet, give the tank a bit more of a run in! Tap water here starts at kH 14, tds 320, when filtered goes to KH 0 and PH 6 but when put in the tank keeps going to KH3 and PH 7.5 despite 3 x 50% water changes???? You may be at 'maximum capacity' with only 20L tank especially if the tank is a cube type rather than shallow type?
    • beanbag
      Right now this tank only has blue bolts and golden bee (red bolts?).  The eggs start off all brown, but at the end, I notice that some are kind of a clear pink-ish color.  So I don't know if that is the egg color of dud or golden bee.  Picture of shrimp only about half hour before molting. The water is always RO + remineralizer, so it should be ok. The tank seems to still be on a "good streak" ever since I started the regimen of weekly water change, monthly gravel vac and plant trim.  The point being to keep the amount of waste low and removing moss / floating plants so that the nitrates go towards growing algae.  At one point, I had three berried females, but only netted about half dozen babies by the end, due to this early molting problem.  There might be about 30-40 shrimp total in 5 gallons, but still very few full-sized adults.
    • ngoomie
      Alright, I've done a bit more research on gentian violet's cancer-causing potential but I haven't yet done research on malachite green's to compare. But from reading the California propositon 65 document about GV (North Americans incl. some Canadians will recognize this as the law that causes some products they buy to be labelled with "known to the state of California to cause cancer", including the exact product I bought) it seems that the risk of cancer is related to internal use, either injection or ingestion. Speaking of ingestion, I think GV bans mainly relate to its use in treating fish/shrimp/etc. which are intended for human consumption, because of the above. And in countries where GV isn't banned for this purpose, it does seem to get used on various species of shrimp without causing any issue for the shrimp themselves (at least enough so for shrimp farming purposes). See the following: In February, the FDA Began Rejecting Imported Shrimp for Gentian Violet and Chloramphenicol (2022 article by Southern Shrimp Alliance) FDA Starts New Calendar Year by Refusing Antibiotic-Contaminated Shrimp from Three BAP-Certified Indian Processors and Adding a BAP-Certified Vietnamese Processor to Import Alert (2024 article by Southern Shrimp Alliance) Southern Shrimp Alliance and some other organizations have tons of other articles in this vein, but I'd be here for a while and would end up writing an absolutely massive post if I were to link every instance I found of articles mentioning shrimp shipments with gentian violet and/or leucogentian violet registering as contaminants. That being said, I know shrimp farmed for consumption and dwarf shrimp are often somewhat distantly related (in fact, the one time a shrimp's species name is listed that I can see, it's the prawn sp. Macrobrachium rosenbergii, who at best occupies the same infraorder as Neocaridina davidi but nothing nearer), but this at least gives a slightly better way of guessing whether it will be safe for aquarium dwarf shrimp or not than my bladder snail anecdote from the OP.
    • sdlTBfanUK
      I would hazard a guess that perhaps those eggs were unfertilized and thereby unviable? Did the eggs change colour, usually yellow to grey as the yolks used up, or any eyes in the eggs. Is your water ok, using RO remineralised and the parameters in range, as I have heard others say that if the water isn't good it can 'force' a molt? How is it going overall, do you have a good size colony in the tank, you may have reached 'maximum occupancy' as a tank can only support so many occupants.
    • beanbag
      Hello folks,  The current problem I am having is that my Taiwan bee shrimp are molting before all their eggs have hatched.  Often the shrimp keep the eggs for 40+ days.  During that time, they lose about half or so, either due to dropping or duds or whatever.  Shortly before molting they look to have about a dozen left, and then they molt with about half a dozen eggs still on the shell.  Then the other shirmp will come and eat the shell.  These last few times, I have been getting around 0-3 surviving babies per batch.  I figure I can make the eggs hatch faster by raising the water temperature more (currently around 68F, which is already a few degrees higher than I used to keep it) or make the shrimp grow slower by feeding them less (protein).  Currently I feed Shrimp King complete every other day, and also a small dab of Shrimp Fit alternating days.  Maybe I can start alternating with more vegetable food like mulberry?  or just decrease the amount of food?
×
×
  • Create New...