Corydoras similis spawned on April 4, 2020. New species for me! About 75 eggs on the glass in various corners of the tank. Fish apparently did not read the social distancing memo I taped to the side of their tank.
Temperature 73°F; TDS 067. Four females and three males. Need to recalibrate my pH tester, so no pH reading. The fish spawned a week after being moved out of a large community tank into a 15 gallon tank by themselves.
I hate when that happens! They'll spawn again for you, I'm sure.
Ah . . . bummer.
Disappointingly, the eggs did not hatch. I don't know why, but it happens sometimes.
Very good! Planning to move our corys to a new tank. Nice tip on the alder cones. We've begun experimenting with adding tannins. Rooibos tea?? Woah! That's interesting.
Very nice, Matt! I haven't had C. similis in a long time, you'll have to save a few fry for me!
The substrate is pool filter sand. The vegetation consists mostly of water lettuce, although I did throw in some ludwigia recently and there was a small sword plant floating in the tank. There are also a couple pieces of wood. The filter is a corner mattenfilter, with only moderate flow.
Every time I do a water change, I add one or two alder cones and also throw in a little bit of Rooibos tea to add tannins.
Having said that, in my experience nothing causes Corydoras to breed like putting them in a different tank. If that doesn't work, I'll put a powerhead in and turn it on full blast and do a couple of big water changes on consecutive days. Of course, even those two tricks don't always work.
Neat! What was the substrate, vegetation and water flow like in the 15 gal they laid eggs in like? We've got some corys that are mature, and just curious what others are finding success with. Were there any alder cones in the 15 gal? Tannins? sand? Looks like you've got . . . something floating . . . hornwort? water lettuce?
With Corydoras eggs, I either pull the eggs or pull the parents. In this case, I pulled the eggs and put them in a shallow plastic container with about half an inch of water, an Alder cone, and two or three Ramshorn snails. If they're going to hatch, it should be tomorrow or Thursday.
Awesome! Are you going to pull, or allow for natural hatching?