Breeding cory catfish

[nik_n]

I'm planning to set up a multi species breeding tank. I think I will go with endler livebearers, shrimp (either yellow or blue) and cory catfish (a variety that's relatively easy to breed don't know which yet). I want to maximise the yield of each. I have never bred cories before so I will do more research before hand, but for now I have some questions

I know cories will eat their own eggs, but will they eat their own fry? If they lay eggs on the glass or plant's I can remove them and hatch them out in a breeder box, but when they get big enough can they go back and grow out in the community tank? Or if the tank is heavily planted is it alright just to leave the eggs in the tank?

How often can I expect corries to breed and how many eggs do they lay at a time?

 

[Colin_T]

I wouldn't keep Corydoras with livebearers because they occur in different water chemistry (GH, KH & pH). Most common livebearers sold at shops also carry intestinal worms, gill flukes and bacteria & protozoan parasites. If you get livebearers, deworm them as soon as you get them.

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Shrimp will eat fish eggs and baby fish, and vice versa.

If you want to breed a species of fish, put them in their own tank. Having more than one species per breeding tank means you lose a lot of eggs/ fry to the other fish.

If fish are well fed and there are lots of plant sin the tank, most fish will not eat their young. However, if a fish is hungry, they will eat eggs and young. Breeding fish should be fed 3-5 times a day for at least 2 weeks before they are bred, and while they are breeding.

You should do more water changes and gravel cleans when feeding fish 3-5 times a day.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

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Corydoras will breed about once a month when conditions are good. Unfortunately they can be hard to get going but a change in atmospheric pressure and slight drop in water temperature will normally do the trick. This can be achieved by doing a big (75-90%) water change using slightly cooler water (a couple of degrees Celsius).

Female Corydoras can lay between 20-100 (sometimes more) eggs and might lay eggs once a week but usually they have a mass spawning over a 24 hour period and then they spend the next month recovering before they go again.

Once one fish breeds, the hormones released by the fish often encourage other fish in the area to breed as well.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Shrimp will eat fish eggs and baby fish, and vice versa.

Sorry Colin, I agree with everything else, but this is wrong. Neocaridina shrimp are actually useful as nannies for cory eggs - they will clean the eggs and reduce fungus spreading, and don't harm the viable eggs or fry, I read the advice about how they can help clean eggs and deliberately added a few of my neos to my cory egg hatchery, and have the largest yield I've ever had from my bronze cories, with more than 100 hatched and almost 80 young fish that have just coloured up, and lived with shrimp since before they hatched. Previous batches I managed to get 6-8 young to survive.
Not all down to the shrimp of course, I've learned as I've gotten more experience hatching and raising fry, but I'm convinced the shrimp helped and did no harm.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I'm planning to set up a multi species breeding tank. I think I will go with endler livebearers, shrimp (either yellow or blue) and cory catfish (a variety that's relatively easy to breed don't know which yet). I want to maximise the yield of each. I have never bred cories before so I will do more research before hand, but for now I have some questions

I know cories will eat their own eggs, but will they eat their own fry? If they lay eggs on the glass or plant's I can remove them and hatch them out in a breeder box, but when they get big enough can they go back and grow out in the community tank? Or if the tank is heavily planted is it alright just to leave the eggs in the tank?

How often can I expect corries to breed and how many eggs do they lay at a time?

Bronze cories (Corydoras Aeneus) are probably one of the easiest to spawn and lay large amounts of eggs, usually mostly on glass but sometimes on plants, filters and other objects in the tank too. With a tank full of fish if you want to raise as many fry as possible, you'll need to remove and raise the eggs or they'll get eaten. There are ways to try to induce spawning in cories that you'll doubtless find as you research.

Cories don't hunt down and try to eat eggs and fry, they just sorta do it if they bumble across them. So don't put tiny newborn wrigglers with the adults. If you get a big spawn, you're gonna need another large-ish tank to grow them out. I have almost 80 bronze cory young growing out in another tank. There wouldn't be room for them in the parent tank.

Endlers/guppies/livebearers breed prolifically and produce huge numbers of young very quickly, with females churning out fry every month. Original tank will get overstocked very quickly, so have a back up plan for where to raise all those endler fry, and what you're going to do with them once you have a lot. They're easy to find and not expensive, so you're not likely to make a profit, and some people have a hard time even getting rid of them all since a lot of stores won't take them. So best to check out local fish stores and see whether they'd be willing to take your youngsters when they're old enough to sell, or decide if you have the time and patience to arrange private sales for them.

Since you're talking about maximising yields, are you hoping to breed fish for profit? Because that's not easy to do... Some people do it as a bit of a side hustle, to help pay for hobby costs, but don't make much money. Some, like me, didn't set out to breed, but the fish just spawned so we ended up raising the fry. I've sold some of my pygmy and bronze cory offspring which are pretty popular, but the money they bring in doesn't even cover the costs of raising them for months, so I can't see doing it to make money really. But I do wish you all the luck!
If you go to Youtube and the channel Aquarium Co op, he has a whole series about breeding fish for profit.

 

[nik_n]

I wouldn't keep Corydoras with livebearers because they occur in different water chemistry (GH, KH & pH). Most common livebearers sold at shops also carry intestinal worms, gill flukes and bacteria & protozoan parasites. If you get livebearers, deworm them as soon as you get them.

---------------------
Shrimp will eat fish eggs and baby fish, and vice versa.

If you want to breed a species of fish, put them in their own tank. Having more than one species per breeding tank means you lose a lot of eggs/ fry to the other fish.

If fish are well fed and there are lots of plant sin the tank, most fish will not eat their young. However, if a fish is hungry, they will eat eggs and young. Breeding fish should be fed 3-5 times a day for at least 2 weeks before they are bred, and while they are breeding.

You should do more water changes and gravel cleans when feeding fish 3-5 times a day.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

---------------------
Corydoras will breed about once a month when conditions are good. Unfortunately they can be hard to get going but a change in atmospheric pressure and slight drop in water temperature will normally do the trick. This can be achieved by doing a big (75-90%) water change using slightly cooler water (a couple of degrees Celsius).

Female Corydoras can lay between 20-100 (sometimes more) eggs and might lay eggs once a week but usually they have a mass spawning over a 24 hour period and then they spend the next month recovering before they go again.

Once one fish breeds, the hormones released by the fish often encourage other fish in the area to breed as well.

I have bred fish in the past and have experience with both triggering the fish to breed and raising the fry. I know that to get the best results I should have a species only tank but since I'm only planning on having one tank, I do not want to dedicate it only to one species. Are there any breeding combinations you would recommend.

 

[nik_n]

Bronze cories (Corydoras Aeneus) are probably one of the easiest to spawn and lay large amounts of eggs, usually mostly on glass but sometimes on plants, filters and other objects in the tank too. With a tank full of fish if you want to raise as many fry as possible, you'll need to remove and raise the eggs or they'll get eaten. There are ways to try to induce spawning in cories that you'll doubtless find as you research.

Cories don't hunt down and try to eat eggs and fry, they just sorta do it if they bumble across them. So don't put tiny newborn wrigglers with the adults. If you get a big spawn, you're gonna need another large-ish tank to grow them out. I have almost 80 bronze cory young growing out in another tank. There wouldn't be room for them in the parent tank.

Endlers/guppies/livebearers breed prolifically and produce huge numbers of young very quickly, with females churning out fry every month. Original tank will get overstocked very quickly, so have a back up plan for where to raise all those endler fry, and what you're going to do with them once you have a lot. They're easy to find and not expensive, so you're not likely to make a profit, and some people have a hard time even getting rid of them all since a lot of stores won't take them. So best to check out local fish stores and see whether they'd be willing to take your youngsters when they're old enough to sell, or decide if you have the time and patience to arrange private sales for them.

Since you're talking about maximising yields, are you hoping to breed fish for profit? Because that's not easy to do... Some people do it as a bit of a side hustle, to help pay for hobby costs, but don't make much money. Some, like me, didn't set out to breed, but the fish just spawned so we ended up raising the fry. I've sold some of my pygmy and bronze cory offspring which are pretty popular, but the money they bring in doesn't even cover the costs of raising them for months, so I can't see doing it to make money really. But I do wish you all the luck!
If you go to Youtube and the channel Aquarium Co op, he has a whole series about breeding fish for profit.

Thank you! I have sent out emails to local fish stores in the city I'm moving to, because I haven't moved there yet, to find out if they will take fish and shrimp I breed. If they all decline I don't think I will set up a breeding tank but rather an aquascape.

I know breeding fish is not a way to make huge profit nor am I planning to. I'm simply planning to do this, as an experiment to see if breeding fish is something that interests me and fits into my day to day lifestyle, before I commit to the breeding side of the hobby. To be clear, I'm not expecting to make much profit, just enough to fund the hobby and maybe earns a bit of pocket change. I'm not planning to relay on this as a source of income and I'm doing it purely for the joy of fish breeding.

I started out breeding fish accidentally when my blue gourmai's spawned and I raised the fry, then the same thing happened with my bristelnose plecos.