In October of 2004 the Potomac Valley Aquarium Society sponsored the first All-Aquarium Catfish Convention. This was quite successful, supremely planned, and enormous fun. Attending were some of the world’s leading catfish enthusiasts. Names like Ian Fuller (Corydoras World), Ingo Seidel (AquaGlobal), Stephan Tanner (Swiss Tropicals), Julian Dignall (Planet Catfish), Shane Linder (Shane’s World, Planet Catfish), Lee Finley (Finley Aquatic Books) and so many more. Getting to meet these people was quite interesting and a lot of fun. But, the best part of the event for me was when Eric Bodrock, who I had recently begun dating, and I were entering an elevator with a few of the aforementioned folks. Someone asked me what catfish I had kept. My response: “I have never kept a Cory in my life.” Everyone on the elevator found this to be hilarious. I think it was Stephan Tanner or Lee Finley, found this to be quite amusing since I was dating one of North America’s top Cory breeders and I had never kept one. The look on Eric’s face was priceless.
 A short while after that I was given some Corydoras pygmaeus by our own Don Tuttle. Don breeds everything with ease (and trout chow). He told me these fish would be easy to breed and a good one to begin with. Eric agreed and offered a lot of advice for setting them up for the purpose of spawning.
Into a bare bottom five gallon tank equipped with a sponge filter and a few stray pieces of Java fern they went. The pH was 7.0 and the temp pretty steady at 74 degrees Fahrenheit. Foods included flake, live black worms and baby brine shrimp. No other fish were kept with them as I was afraid of the Cory eggs becoming someone’s snack.
A few months went by and no eggs were found. I thought maybe they were just young fish. There were three males and two females. I knew if the sex ratio was skewed towards more males there would be a greater success in breeding these fish.
Eric suggested I try water changes with cooler temperatures. Sure enough, that was the trick. After one water change using quite cool water, the following morning there were about fifty eggs in the tank. They were on the sides of the glass and in both the sunken and floating mops. Since the tank was so clean, I knew that if the fry were left to find food, they would soon starve. So, I picked the eggs from the tank and placed them into a plastic shoebox. I filled the shoebox with about three inches of water from the parents’ tank. The eggs were clear, about one millimeter in diameter and took almost one week to hatch. Their heads are jet black and they have black bars (more like dots) on their bodies. To me they resemble insect larvae.
Being too small for microworms or baby brine shrimp, I began feeding them with APR. The shoebox also had a small clump of Java moss for shelter and for the microorganisms housed on it for the fry to eat. Growth seemed to be fairly quick. And then bam! No fry in the shoebox. None. Gone. Not even a carcass. They just seemed to melt and disappear.
After repeating this process for another two spawns, Eric suggested stepping up water changes in the shoebox, so I did. Since there was only about one half gallon in the shoebox I was afraid of doing large water changes. I would change one cup every other day. Fresh water was used to replace what I had removed. Still, the fry would reach close to four millimeters and  melt. I was about to give up until Ian Fuller came to stay with us in September of 2007. Ian was kind enough to allow me to pick his brain about caring for the fry. And sure enough, I was not offering enough food and really needed more frequent water changes. Shoeboxes may work for killifish, but not for growing out Corys. Now my pygmaeus eggs are hatched out in two and a half gallon tanks. And they are well fed, with frequent water changes.
Eric likes to refer to parts of his Cory keeping as “the Ian Influence”. I am grateful for Ian’s input for the sake of my fish. Of course, I am going to try my hand at keeping and hopefully spawning more Corydoras catfish.
Thanks for your influence on me, Ian! |
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