Babies!!!

[Laxison]

...well, not yet...but to my pleasant surprise my bronze cories laid eggs tonight! I have never bred cories before, though, so I'm a little lost as to what to do from here. I read up some online about the eggs and have already taken them from the tank and put them in a bucket (no spare tank) with fresh water and a sponge filter so that they're away from their parents who view them as tasty snacks!

From there, though, I'm not sure what to do. I have bred fish before but, again, not cories. Any advice or direction to help me sucessfully hatch as many eggs as possible (with as few casualties as possible!) would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Pat Kelly]

Congrats.

As far as I am concerned just make sure they have clean water and plenty of movement. Maybe add an airstone.

Once they hatch out and start swimming the fun is finding food small enough. I had success with taking sponge filters from other tanks and squeezing them some into the fry tank. It may be a coupld of weeks before they can go on BBS.

Keep us informed of the progress.

 

[Spine]

Laxison,
Take a look at Ted Judy's website(Ted spoke at the april meeting) http://www.tedsfishroom.com/incubator.html
Ted has a Hatchery/Incubator that you can DIY and it will fit in your tank (Space saver).
Maybe this will help you good luck.

 

[Laxison]

Thanks so much guys! That incubator looks great and I am going to hit up good ol' Home Depot (or Lowes!) this weekend to pick up some supplies and attempt to put one together!

I ended up adding a heater and thermometer to the bucket so that the eggs stay at a good temperature and have been keeping an eye on them. As far as I can tell they are all OK and I'm getting so excited to see how many (if any!) hatch. I will keep you all updated on the progress. So far we have:

1. Cories lay some eggs!
2. Allison finds eggs on tank's glass.
3. Allison celebrates finding said eggs and takes pictures of the proud parents!
4. Eggs are...well, still eggs...
5. ...still eggs...
6. ...still eggs...

Celebration will re-commence when the eggs hatch!

 

[Spine]

Sounds good I agree with Pat you should put a air stone in the bucket.

 

[Laxison]

Well, I added the airstone and that seemed to work quite well. The eggs hatched overnight and I had somewhere around 20 babies swimming around!

Unfortunately, I don't know what happened to all of the guys! I think some of them escaped while I was pouring some of them from the bucket into the trap (since using a small net was not helping much!). I got one little guy into the breeder trap and the others either are swimming around in the tank as snacks for their parents or flat out didn't make it. Some also got scortched because the heater I had in the bucket with them got too hot when I took it out and burst when I added it back to the bucket (lord almighty THAT is a self correcting error!). The only thing was that I didn't see any floating "bodies" after that in the bucket, so I don't know if that did some of them in or if they were just too fragile and were not ready to be moved.

So yeah, I made a huge mistake and feel like a numb skull for it. I already took two full trays of ice cubes and added them to the tank to see if I could get my cories to breed again! I still have one little guy contained and he (or she) ought to be fine. I know now to just leave these guys put for a few days as opposed to adding them to the tank. I just thought it'd be better for them to be in the established tank, quarantined away from the other fish, and could grow there away from the eggs and cruddy water they were hatched in. Ha! I got all excited because I thought that in a few months as these guys grew I'd have some fish to donate for the box exchange! You live and learn, though; for me, it was the hard way

 

[maddog10]

WOW, you vaporized them

Bet you don't do that again! I use the Stealth Heaters, they are supposed to shut themselves off when removed from the water and they don't explode

(just messin' with ya)
You sure can do a lot with different smilies.

 

[Laxison]

AHHAHAHAHHAHHA those are some GREAT smilies!! Hmmm, Stealth heaters...well, I am definitely in the market for a new one so I will be sure to get one of those. I still can't believe I made such a bone-headed move but at least I have one little guy saved from that incident...even though I'll probably nick-name him "Lil' Shaker" or something since he'll probably be somewhat skittish for the rest of his life! I sure would be!

 

[maddog10]

I have a bunch of 25watt Stealths that i am not going to be using. I can bring one (or more) to the meeting.

You could name him "Sparky"

 

[cyradis4]

Hi!

I"ve also had heaters go BOOM! on me..... though I was lucky and MOST of them that decide to pack it up and go south USUALLY either just stop working or (eek!) get stuck thermostats.

As for breeding nets, not sure if you'll have this issue with the one you have, but I've lost a number of baby fish when the larger fish outside of the net try to suck them through the net. The biggest trouble maker in that regard was a foot long pleco I had a while back, but the Angels occasionally did it too.

Also, I've raised baby angels in a bucket with an airstone, heater, and carefull water changes for up to a month AFTER free swimming. When I'm conciencious about the water changes, I have an excellent survival rate.

Later!
Amanda.

 

[Laxison]

Mike, I'd love to buy one of those extra stealth heaters from you at the next meeting if that's OK and all!

Well, those frisky dogs are at it again! I just got back from work and the gym and took a look into the empty and eggless tank. I turned around to start unpacking my gym bag, turned back around to put something down and voila! EGGS!!! Wow! Just as I wrote that I looked up to actually see one of the cories laying her eggs! Now, when I kept livebearers a couple of years back, I got to see them giving birth which was also facinating in and of itself! Actually, maybe that was one of the dad's fertilizing the eggs. Either way, that's prety neat! I'd grab my camera to snap some pics, but I don't want to scare them.

I'm going to try to put these eggs into this breeder trap within the tank and move my airstone to be inside the trap as well. If that doesn't prove to be successful (Hey, at least this time I don't have a heater to explode on these guys!) I'll go back to the seperate bucket with the sponge filter, air stone, etc. But after yesterday's disasterous experience with that, I'll stay away a bit.

Here's to some healthy, explosion-free babies! I'll keep everyone posted!

 

[maddog10]

Allison,

I have brand new (in the package) for $17
or
VERY slightly used for $10

 

[Laxison]

Work has been crazy for the last couple of weeks so I have had zero time to get online and give any sort of update on the baby cories.

Let's see...the parents were at it again and gave me another batch of eggs which I put into a fry trap to raise in the tank since trying to raise them in the bucket didn't work out so well last time. I was lucky enough to see 3 of the fish hatching from their eggs which had to be one of the neatest things I had ever seen! I had +/- 40 eggs in there and was able to see that 1/4th of them hatch before I went to bed all excited that I would wake up to see a "filled to the brim" trap with baby cories! Well, I awoke and the little buggers (I used some other words to describe them to myself...) all escaped in the middle of the night into the tank. Well, it can't all be bad since my fish all inadvertantly received some midnight snacks! Every once in a while I squint my eyes to see if I see any little guys swimming around in the tank. None yet...

I got right back at it and dumped two more trays of ice cubes into my tank to get the fish frisky and rarin' to go and sure enough got about 5 more eggs out of them. No, not as many as I had gotten from them before, but they're all tired I'm sure!! I removed the eggs and put them into an old fish bowl that I had from years past (took a bit to scrub it clean!), tossed an airstone in and waited 5 days before I had 5 little cories hatch. YAY! 100% sucess with that batch! They will be staying in the bowl for awhile until they get to a decent size and I move them to the breeder trap with their big brothers and sisters and can get acclimated to the tank that they will be living in.

I now have 8 baby cories out of about 60 or 70 eggs; it isn't a lot but after the ruff and tumble time I had with my complete inexperience with breeding cories (it first happend by a complete accident...thunder storms cause a power outage so the filters and power heads weren't working and I suppose they enjoyed the stagnant waters quite a bit!, I have to say I'm pretty happy with the outcome, relatively speaking of course! "Sparky" (as Mike has named him and I so happily call him!) is still alive and kicking and has grown quite a lot in his short two week life span! Wait, "life span," that doesn't sound right. Sounds like he only "lived" for two weeks. OK, better put...for living two weeks so far on this green earth he's grown quite a bit! ...needs work...

So that's the update. I have quite a while before I release these guys in the main tank but they are so cute and it's so neat to see them growing and forming!

 

[Laxison]

PS Mike, either or for the heaters would be great! How about the "slightly used one?" I'll get that one from you and it ought to work great!

 

[maddog10]

Congrats on the babies! You will have a better success rate once you get your system figured out (it is mostly trial and error for all us anyway).

I will pack up 1 slightly used header and bring to the meeting.

 

[Laxison]

My God...I've killed them all.

Well, no, not all of them. But the 5 babies I so joyfully described? Dead. After I posted the last, well, post, I set off to do my water changes. I was going to wait a day but decided that my fish were already patient enough with me since I usually do the water changes on Sundays and I had been lazy on staying on that track.

So I did all of my water changes and saved the little fish bowl for last. Quick easy change. Suck out >60% of the water, pour some cool, fresh water in there, and them voila! Cleanliness! I was just going to scoop some water from my water bucket to give the babies fresh water but thought that it would spill all over the place. So, thinking that I was being all smart and spill-proof, I took the bowl to the faucet and turned it on ever so slighty so as to not create a huge disturbance in the water. Those guys are so small that any swishing around would probably freak them out. I tipped the bowl to an angle so that the slow stream of water would slow up even more and trickle down the inside glass in the bowl.

I must have misjudged what was a good "slow" stream of water because when I went back to put the airstone back in I had 5 floaters. *insert picture of Allison with her face in her hands and shaking her head*

OK, so I have three guys left. Still feel lousy but will continue my trials and, well, many errors. I'm going to do those water changes one drop at a time from now on! I thought I was pouring the water in slowly enough but boy did I misjudge that!

 

[maddog10]

It might not have been how fast the water was going in. There could have been a big temperature difference or some other change in water chemistry. Isn't raising fish fun.

 

[longstocking]

I use to raise red lazer cory babies ! They are so cute !

A little trick. Take a razor blade or your hand will do as well and move the eggs to a seperate tank/container. The eggs are VERY hardy and should not be affected. Add meth. blue to the water and an air stone. Then watch your eggs hatch. The babies need to be able to get to the surface. Cories breath air as well... so they need to be bale to come to the top. So a shallow container will work best. Change the water out every other day or so and you should have many babies soon !

When ever changing water of any type of fry, match the temp of the water as best you can. Feed micro worms for the first few weeks.

Sorry that I didn't chime in sooner !! Didn't see it untill now

 

[Laxison]

Thanks so much guys! I just can't seem to pinpoint it since the temperature was near the same as the water in the bowl was, give or take a degree. Sarah, thanks for the shallow water suggestion; I had never thought of that! I notice my other cories making a bee line to the water surface every so often but I usally attributed it to hyperness!

I found more success when I used to breed livebearers (God were they easy!!!) so the cories randomly breeding really caught me off guard and have me in for a crash course with their breeding habits!

 

[longstocking]

Another little trick.... use the water from the main tank to change the water out. You have to be very attentive to the water changes though. Every day if you use this method.