[Garrard29]

as we are discussing about CPD water parameters, sorry i don’t know it exactly. But this CPD remarkably-coloured little fish was discovered in 2006 and many were skeptical of the photographs; but once confirmed, it became one of the most sought-after fish in the history of the hobby. Exportation was banned by the Myanmar government who feared the species was near-extinction due to the thousands of fish being caught daily; it was subsequently discovered in other areas, and has further shown itself to be an easy fish to spawn in the aquarium.

Males are much more brightly coloured as can be seen in the first and second photos; the third photo shows a female. Like many of the small cyprinids, this one is an egg-scatterer and shows no parental care; in a thickly-planted species aquarium, spawning will likely be frequent and some fry should survive even with no intervention from the aquarist.

A dark substrate will cause the fish to display its deepest colouration which is certainly beautiful, and the aquarium should be thickly planted for the reasons noted above under Compatibility/Temperament. The fish spends its day in the lower half of the aquarium, and will not rise to the surface even to feed, so foods must be sinking as noted below. It is rather stationary, its only movement often the display of the males. Shy by nature, it will remain hidden if the plants are not thick.

Upon discovery in 2006, the species was generally seen under the name Microrasbora sp. “Galaxy” or the Galaxy Rasbora. Upon being described by Tyson Roberts (2007) it was placed in the newly erected genus Celestichthys in the Sub-Family Danioninae, under the species name of margaritatus; Roberts recognized its close similarity to Microrasbora erythromicron but kept it separate. Disagreement from several ichthyologists followed, and in 2008, Kevin Conway (with Wei-Jen and Richard Mayden) concluded that the species is closest to Danio erythromicron [originally described as Microrasbora erythromicron but also moved to Danio in 2008] and on the basis of a number of scientific traits assigned it to this genus.

In a 2007 published study, Richard L. Mayden et.al. determined that the species then in Microrasbora are in fact phylogenetically closer to Danio than Rasbora, and subsequently all but one of the species were moved to other genera; Microrasbora rubescens is the sole confirmed species in the genus, although M. microphthalma and M. rubescens “Thuzari” are still uncertain. It is likely that these beautiful fish may appear under any of these names for some time.

[Garrard29]

One of the most popular fish that new and experienced aquarists breed is corydoras catfish. People are attached to them because of their fun character, friendly personality, peacefulness, small size, and their ability to clean up food off the substrate. After falling in love with these little characters, for many the next step is attempting to breed them.
But if you want to purposely get your corydoras catfish to breed, then it is highly advisable to set up a corydoras species tank, as other fish in the tank might not be tolerant of the conditions that you could make to help the corydoras want to breed.

The breeding tank doesn’t have to be very big, but make sure it has a large footprint (large substrate area) as opposed to being quite a tall tank, you don’t want to be investing money in a large tank, when it has the same footprint as a tank with less volume that could have been bought for less money. This is because quite simply, as you will notice, corydoras catfish tend to swim around the bottom of the tank, across and along, and don’t use the upper areas very much. You also want to have the water pretty oxygenated in the fry tank, and a large footprint gives more surface area to absorb it.

It has been known for corydoras catfish to breed in a tank as small as 5g, however they would need to only be in there for a short period of time whilst breeding occurs. A tank so small would require a lot of water changes and maintenance to keep the nitrAtes down. As a breeding tank, I would recommend a tank around 10g, obviously with proper filtration and a heater. This would require less water changes and maintenance, and give the corydoras catfish more swimming space, thus most probably making happier corys.

Decoration is down to personal choice, however things such as sand/small rounded gravel substrates and hiding places would be recommended to make that little effort to make the corys happy, which is very important. I would not, however, create too many nooks and crannies as you don’t want finding the eggs to be too difficult. A quite important addition you might want to add is a couple of broad leaved plants, since some species of corydoras like to lay their eggs on plants.

Just like keeping them normally, you will need to keep your breeding corydoras catfish in groups to encourage them to breed. It has been known for them to breed in groups of 3, but more is obviously better, 6 is a very good number.

Next up is the fry tank. This will have to be bigger than the breeding tank, as you could be looking at over 100 fry, and all of these will have to be raised by you to a sellable size. A good choice is to have more than one fry setup, upgrading as they get bigger. As a general guide, I would say around 10g or less as a hatchery and to raise the fry in the very early stages, 15-20g as they are a bit bigger, and 30g for when they are coming up to sellable size, the sellable size depending on what lfs you want to sell them to. The reason I recommend more than one is that 100+ tiny tiny fry in a 30g tank, the odds of them getting the small amount of food that you will be adding would be slim.

[Author]

Posts