The Life Cycle of The Cory Catfish

Early this morning I noticed a batch of cory eggs on the side of our 29 gallon aquarium.  Since we only have guppy and molly fry (both are livebearers) and 2 juvinile bristlenose pleco's in the tank, I knew it had to be the cory cats.

Although it is ideal to have at least 3 of each variety of cories, I currently have one spotted cory (the other 2 I got with it died), and a pepper cory, and what I believe to be 2 green cories.

I'm pretty sure the green cories are the parents, since most strains of cories don't school together, so I'm pretty sure that they won't spawn together either.

This lens is going to be a "baby book" if you wish for the cory cats.

Stick around and I'll let you know how they're doing, what I'm feeding them, and I might even have a few pictures for you as well.

If you look at the right side of the aquarium glass you'll see lots of little white dots...these are the cory eggs.  They're laid here, and on one other side of the aquarium.

So far we have counted 88 eggs!

We've also moved all of the mollies and guppies out of that tank, into our 55 gallon tank.

*Update*

Unfortunately, even though I had been assured that bristlenose plecos would not eat eggs, they did, so no cory fry for me.

Hopefully we will have some soon!

Although we've seen a few more batches of eggs, we still haven't seen any fry.

The mollies and guppies love eating the eggs though, and it's funny to seem them swimming around with eggs stuck to their lips.

Poor things. I was worried about them at first, but the eggs eventually fell off, and all of the fish are fine.

We moved the cories to their own tank last night, so hopefully we'll get some more eggs, and see if they'll hatch this time.

I'll keep you updated.

Tell me about them!

Do you have cories?

If you love to read, or if you want to know exactly which species of cory catfish you have these books should help.

Enjoy.

I noticed the cories were spawning this morning, and I managed to take a pretty bad video of it with my cell phone.

The female held the eggs in fins under her body, then wiggles over the amazon sword plant leaf. When she was finished there were 7 eggs on the leaf.

If you'd like to hear more about our pet fish, or if you have questions about your fish join us at the Fargo Moorhead Fish and Reptile Forums!

Everyone is welcome, and the other members and I will be happy to answer your questions, and to let you brag about your fish.

Have you raised cories?

Got any advice? Questions? Comments?

I'd love to hear them.