Baby C. Pandas Finally!

[Rez]

I bought 6 Corydoras Pandas in the early summer in hopes of breeding them. C. Pandas are definately my favorite fish out of all the fish I have ever owned, and really the only fish I want to own now are corydoras!! Well anyway, they spawned for the first time in late August, great timing on their part they laid them the night before I was to move back to school so I had to flush them . I was hoping that they would spawn for me again at school, but the females would get fat and I'd see the "glue" marks on the glass but no eggs. I suspected my other fish were eating the eggs . I am seriously wanting to get rid of my other fish and just focus on the cories, but I'd feel guilty about getting rid of them. I came back from dinner the other night and found a egg stuck on the lip of one of my mollies!!! I caught the molly and gingerly pulled the egg off the lip and placed it in a net breeder in the tank. Two days later I found 2 eggs on the roots of one of my plants. One had already fungused so I got rid of it, but the other looked viable, so I placed that one in the net breeder too. They have both since hatched and I have been gingerly hand feeding them baby brine shrimp through a medicine dropper. Both appear to be doing well and they are growing . I just wanted to know if there is more I should know about raising the fry or advice on baby C. Pandas, or baby cories in general. Thanks.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi Rez

You must be doing a great job of keeping your tank healthy, to get pandas to thrive and spawn!

As a rule, these delicate fish need to be quite mature to spawn and are known to be egg eaters. If you can rescue the eggs, they are raised the same as all the other corys. I've found that mine like to hide their eggs and have had success by providing a place for them to do it. I use the metal, hang on the side, thermometers, and they squeeze under them to spawn. Then, I just move the thermometer to another tank to hatch them and raise the fry.

Here's a picture of some eggs I collected. They were spawned over the course of several days, and the eggs on the far left are either ready to hatch, or have fungus on them. The ones on the far right are only a few hours old.

I have the air pump turned off for the picture, but you can see the airline with the airstone positioned to create a good flow of water over the eggs.

Pandas, being small corys, do not usually lay many eggs at once, but will repeat the process every few days for a while before taking a break.

You could try using spawning mops or java moss too, but they will need to be removed from the tank and put into more permanent accommodations to raise them.

 

[Rez]

Thank you for the praise of my fishkeeping skills I am relatively new to fishkeeping, a year this November, but I do ALOT of reading on the subject. I did make my decision to get C. Pandas kinda just as an impulse buy, but I have not been a bit dissapointed. They are the best fish, I love them so much!! I heard that corydoras were a hardy fish, I did not know C. Panda was actually a fairly fragile species, but I have not had any trouble with them at all (knock on wood) for the 5 months I have had them they are so active especially with their white sand bottomed tank. I feed them Hikari sinking wafers for their staple food, but they also get a treat of frozen blood worms often. I would like to feed them live worms, but alas I am limited on my live food selection here, maybe once I graduate from college and get a job I can afford to get some shipped to me. I just noticed that I can see the barbels on the babies!!!! they are so cute . Thanks for the advice I now have them moved to a bare-bottomed 2.5 gallon aquarium for closer observation and care. I have noticed that they are more active in their own aquarium and out of the breeding net. I will move them back into the community aquarium once they look like minuature adults. I hope that they will continue to do well and make my treasured family of 6 C. Pandas a family of 8. My deam is to have a huge tank teeming with C. Panda and C. Adolfoi someday. I'll keep you informed on their progress.

 

[Rez]

Last night my C. Panda bred again I was able to save 10 of the eggs. It was a labor intensive process however, the female panda would drop down and eat the egg a microsecond after she laid it. so everytime she would lay the egg I had to tap the glass to get her to leave the vicinity of the freshly laid egg I would then gently take the egg off the glass and place it on the wall of my net breeder. I am sure she laid a ton last night, but I only had the stamina to save ten of the eggs. I just thought that I'd keep everyone informed on the progress of my C. Panda breeding experience.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi Rez

That's such good news!

It takes a gentle and steady hand to move newly laid eggs. I wish you the best of luck with them. Please keep us up to date on their progress.

 

[Rez]

Hi Rez

That's such good news!

It takes a gentle and steady hand to move newly laid eggs. I wish you the best of luck with them. Please keep us up to date on their progress.

Out of the 13 total eggs from the last spawn of my C. Pandas late Saturday night, 9 of the eggs have growing embryos in them, four of them have either fungused or were not fertile to begin with. I'll let you know when they hatch, which should be very soon indeed

P.S. The two baby C. Pandas from the first hatching are still doing great, and they are growing quickly they even have the black around their eyes already. I wish I could send pics, maybe I'll get a digital camera for X-mas


Rez

 

[Siamese Fighter05]

Congrats and goodwork,
I hope to some day breed or at least own some c.pandas but for now no can do I am currently rearing some c.aenus fry to try and get some experierence for some of the more picky cories. Hopefully in a few months when all of my skunk cories have matured i can give them ago. Well done and keep us updated.

PS - Piccys if you can!!