Michael has great fish, I vouch for him 100%
Jose - you are too kind as it is always--in my eyes--an incomplete work in progress. Four new breeding grow out tanks setup this weekend. All operating with Hamburg filters. Now I need three more 15gs to get serious on breeding more cories.
Here is a little background on my catfish: I'm currently breeding about a dozen species of cories (mostly wild caught from Peru)- I really don't do anything special. Breeding groups are setup in 10g to 20g tanks. Some tanks I pull eggs and those where I don't I provide java moss or java fern for egg laying/fry development (I always seem to have multiple sizes in those tanks.) I do regular water changes (at least weekly) - wild caught cories are really sensitive and they let me know when I have missed a water change (regrettably - I lost all my C. reticulatus--a really beautiful cory--due to missed WCs - I had knee surgery and could barely get to the fish room for two weeks.) I mostly breed in Fairfax County tap water. I'll occasionally use cold tap or rain water--I have three 55g rain barrels off the fishroom (if you were at the holiday party i hope you checked out my water system)--to give them a jolt. I do maintain a robust vermiculture setup which provides good food for breeders. I also feed frozen foods and various commercially available food. I move hatched fry to 2.5g tanks with small sponge filters less than half full and feed sponge "scrung," microworms, BBS, various fry formulas and ground flake. I move then to larger tanks as they grow. Self sustaining populations just stay in the same tank - with occasional fish pulled so as not to overpopulate the tank and encourage breeding.
Here is the list of what has bred in my fishroom:
C114
CW010
C. aeneus
C. ambiacus
C. elegans
C. leucomelas
C. loxozonus
C. napoensis
C. panda
C. pygmaeus
C. rabauti
C. schultzei
C. sterbai
C. weitzmani
I have a few others and am still working on getting them to breed. However, I'm transitioning a few tanks to breed some of the undescribed tetras I collected in the amazon and I'm always working on Apistogrammoides (last check breeding pairs fetch about $125) and Apistogrammas.