Corydoras aeneus

The albino cory definitely adds color (or lack of) to any hobbyist's aquarium.

I have always liked the albino form of the C. aeneus because it added a great contrast to the tank settings and the other tank inhabitants. Mine ranged from a definite white coloration to being slightly yellowish.

At one time I was allowed to spawn some of these that came into the wholesaler I dealt with that had red heads. It turned out these were actually the regular C. aeneus albino form. They had a die injected into them to give them the 'new' coloration. I let the wholesaler know this and he didn't purchase any more.

Until I was ready to spawn my albino's I kept them in community tanks that housed non-aggressive species. When I was ready to spawn them I place one male and one female in a bare bottom ten gallon tank with a sponge filter that stuck to the side glass of the tank so the filter wasn't resting on the floor of the tank. I did this to ensure that when I fed the adults live tubifex worms that the worms wouldn't find a place to 'hide' and the adult corys could eat their fill.

At the time I was breeding these, my pH was approximately 8.0 and my hardness was way off the scale. I used the drop method (I don't remember what it was called today) and when the coloration hadn't changed after 40 drops I quit. I used our regular tap water. That was it. No additives or anything else.

Sexing corys is really quite simple. Looking at a few specimens from above one can tell the sexes apart because the females will be wider and from the side more plump. Males are very slender. Another way to sex corys is by looking at their vents. This can only be accomplished in mature specimens, in my experience. The male's vent will be more like a slit and the female's will be oval. The best way to remember this is think of the shape of the egg.

The reason I only used one male to my females is that the male was able to fertilize 90% of her eggs alone. If the male wasn't able to do this I would have added more males, one at a time to ensure more fertile eggs. The female ripened up quickly being fed the live tubifex worms and in a few days was ready to spawn.

These fish spawn in the Corydoras fashion, the 'T' position. This is accomplished by the male initiating spawning by going over her head and 'stimulating' her and then moving to the front of her head with his side to her snout. When she was ready she would place her whiskers in the male's pectoral fins as the male tried to bend around her. The female would then release any where from one to 5 eggs in a pouch she made from putting her ventral fins together to make a 'pouch'. The male would leave the female and the female would lie there a few more seconds and then she would swim all over the tank to find just the right place to deposit her eggs. When she found the perfect place she could be seen cleaning the surface and then she would press her underside to the area and release the sticky eggs. This will continue for hours. Most of the time the female doesn't seem to pay much notice to the male's attentions and keeps doing whatever she wants to. Sometimes I have seen the males in Corydoras have problems just trying to keep up with the females as they go around the tank ignoring them!

Corydoras females have a habit of producing a few eggs per day for three days. She will lay her eggs all over the tank.

The fry of this species are very sensitive to chemicals for controlling fungus. I spawned my first pair of albino corys in 1987. Like many other hobbyists, I wanted to control fungus on eggs and used what everyone else used: Methylene Blue. My biggest problem with using the methylene blue with my albino corys was as soon as the fry hatched they died. I had to think of another way to hatch them with little fungus problems so that I wouldn't lose every fry produced.

I decided to raise the temperature of the spawning tank to 80° F. and after the breeders were finished spawning I removed them from the tank to hatch the fry in the tank where they were laid. In two days the eggs hatched and the fry survived! Usually within 24 hours the fry will have absorbed their yolk sac and are ready to eat newly hatched brine shrimp.

There have been times when I collect the eggs and place them in a fine mesh net to hatch, hanging the net on the inside of a ten gallon tank. The tank contains a sponge filter and a heater to maintain the temperature at 80° F. After the eggs hatch I siphon them with a regular piece of air line tubing and release them into a rearing tank of the same water quality and temperature.

I have noticed that no matter what my water makeup was, these albino corys still hatched in two days. The other corys hatch in five to seven days.

For the first couple of weeks the fry are susceptible to fungus. It is imperative to make sure the fry tank is kept clean of any uneaten brine shrimp. I add baby Ramshorn snails to all my fry tanks to clean up any excess food when the fry are ready to eat.

Once the fry were a couple of weeks old I would start feeding them finely ground basic flakes. When the fry were about three quarters of an inch in length I would begin adding live tubifex worms to their diet.

It takes a little more care to breed and raise these albinos but the small amount of extra work will be worth the effort. Even if you are not interested in spawning these beauties, they are a great addition to a community tank of non-aggressive species. Believe me, even if you don't spawn them and just place them in a community tank, they will start spawning and laying eggs everywhere! Of course, the eggs will be eaten but nature will take it's course.

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