How I Bred Sterbai Corydoras at Home 

is sand necessary for them to breed? I've got green curry

So you are selectively breeding sterbais? Havent heard about that being done with cories before. Good luck with it mate.

That's very kind, thank you

Good luck! I hope they breed for you.

Thanks as always, more to come

Ya the eggs are pretty solid. Over time rigidity goes up and adhesiveness goes down.

Congratulations, hopefully that's just the first of many. Black venezuelans are beautiful

I'm glad it's working for you! For me it has just depended on how soon I find the eggs if they will re-adhere to another surface or not. It does help though

Congratulations! That's incredible timing

I think if you give them something really fine that they can fit in their mouths, they should be fine. I know I've heard of feeding repashy to baby corydoras

That in particular was a microworm or detritus worm. Brine shrimp are an ideal fry food

Oh that's actually just a plant pot.. standard size if there is such a thing. They happen to fit the diameter of the gravel vac

That would have been Sera Micron

I have the same brand right now. There's kind of a trick to making them sink. You squeeze the cube under water, let it soak up a little, then lift it out of the water and squeeze really tight from multiple angles. Squeeze all that water back out. Then dunk it in the water again and maybe give it another squeeze or two. You'll see bubbles come out while you do this. They should just sink after that. For what it's worth, some bottles work great and other bottles I can't get to sink for the life of me.

you're a madman!

I think they enjoy "regions" of flowing water along with other areas where they can relax and rest. I used a small pump outputting quite a bit less than 500 liters per hour to create a higher flow region around a spawning mop. Outside of a breeding context, I can't say from experience how critical any strong current is to their long-term health

@@MakeMoreFish That makes sense to provide both flow, as well as areas to rest. Hence, your comments indicate that that I'll use the flow pump occasionally rather than having it on 24/7.

Just a normal water change schedule. Maybe a few more here and there but nowhere near every day

I sink them by getting them wet or holding them underwater while squeezing all of the trapped air out of them. It takes practice.

The tank shown in that video uses a matten sponge filter. The first corydoras I spawned did so under a hang on back filter because of the flow. I think there's a good chance a HOB will take care of your flow needs

@@MakeMoreFish Did you use air or a power head in your matten filter? I can get some pretty serious flow out of my air powered matten filters. I’ve actually dialed them down thinking the lower current would be better for spawning. I’ll be changing that soon.

@@barefootaquatics air power for me. And you're right, they can really move some water. I have mine turned down also

I leave the heater on. The temp drop is only temporary. That is something I think about though, how long does the drop need to last? Briefly is working out so far

They usually float a bit for a couple of days. If the water flow is carrying bubbles into the mop, that would make it float. Happens to me all the time. You can back the mop away a little bit and it won't catch so many.

@@MakeMoreFish thanks for the advice, ive moved the mop a bit further away from the flow, and now a few hours later it sank

Those were live baby brine shrimp.

@@MakeMoreFish Thanks. I had assumed live BBS would scatter as soon as they were released but these stayed bunched up even when the Cory came sliding in. I've just had 3 hatch a few days ago and yesterday harvested 11 more eggs. My first 2 batches failed but for the 3rd and 4th, I put a drop of Methylene Blue in.

Generic from Amazon. Just a small submersible pump

They were sitting over a black surface and adjusted their colors accordingly. Back on a lighter substrate or something they would look more familiar

In this case I did a series of water changes to remove most of the methylene blue before allowing the box to circulate water from the main tank.

@@MakeMoreFish But were the series of changes you made all in the same day or spread out over several days?

@@joaoalmeida5653 All in the same day. All in one sitting, actually. When it's time to remove the methylene blue, you want it gone asap. You just have to be gentle enough not to beat up any freshly hatched fry.

Ummm I think so. I'm pretty sure. My understanding is fluval bought marina and they just changed packaging to say fluval

I suspect it would work equally well for many other varieties but I can't say for certain. I'll be continuing to test as I bring in new species

did you get these guys locally or did you order them? they look fantastic

@@emilytoth5220 I bought them from a couple local fish stores but they were imported I'm sure. This was after 6 months of good food!

Hi. Where do you come from? Sorry for my question Im french and i Want To say "you speak so speed for me" But i like your Channel. Thank you very much 😉 See you soon 🙄😊

Loko

Where did you get the small water pump youre using to trigger spawning in the mop? Im wanting to breed sterbais and wanting to copy the setup you have.

I'm sorry, at which point? The only time I recall using an air stone only is while eggs were incubating

6-7 days seems a bit long. I can't say I've seen much difference between re-adhered or not in terms of hatch rate, but I do think cleanliness is a factor. If the eggs get covered in debris and general "fuzz," fungal or otherwise, it can be difficult for the fry to hatch out. Hard water also I have heard can harden the eggs and make them more difficult to break out of. That's 100% hearsay but it makes some intuitive sense to me.

@@MakeMoreFish yeah it’s been 9 days and most of them are still swimming around in their eggs with the tail sticking out…kinda sad because I don’t know what else there is to do with this batch besides watching them die one by one :(…interestingly though, I had a second batch that has hatched very well for me after 3 days. The only difference is I used methylene blue this time - which I noticed resulted in no biofilm building up on the container wall, which I guess may have contributed….? I have so many questions…did you use water from the tank when hatching these eggs or do you think that’s not a big deal? Also, how toxic is methylene blue to fry? Manufacturer claims it to be safe for fry but I read a paper which showed at high concentrations it is indeed toxic. I ask because it seems to help keep my fry alive past the first couple of days and I was wondering how urgently I would need to water change it out.

For those fry that struggled to hatch all the way, if you happen to have a small pipette you can draw them in and then somewhat forcefully puff them back out. It can blow off the eggshell. By that time they may be too far gone but I have about a 50% success rate with it. I jokingly call it a corydoras C-section. Over the last year or so I've taken to using brand new, clean, and dechlorinated water for hatching eggs artificially to reduce debris and biofilm accumulation. In my experience, a concentration of methylene blue that is sufficient to prevent fungal growth has been harmful or lethal to fry if left in their water for more than about a day. That's completely my own experience. I have no idea what the science is on it.

@@MakeMoreFish I’ve accidentally done it a couple times already! I guess I’ll go back and blow all of them out of their shells :) didn’t know it’s actually a thing. And that makes sense! I guess I’ll experiment it a little bit with methylene blue and figure it out from there… How much and how often are you changing the water during hatching and fry grow out? I’m using a small container which I estimate to hold 1.5 gallon of water.

Could be, a change of water parameters and temperature from moving to a new tank could trigger some interest in breeding. Only one way to find out!

I paint most of my tanks black on the back and bottom so the fish tend to darken their color to match. A bit of camouflage. In a brighter environment their color would lighten up too

That in particular was a microworm. In your case I'm betting you have detritus worms. Nothing to be concerned about.

They are grown and sold. Some of them might have bred by now, they should be large enough

Did you have any other fish in the tank? Fry at the surface of the water sounds unusual for corydoras. If your goal is maximizing fry survival I think you would still be better off removing adult fish in the tank despite any risk of disturbing fry while you do it. Snails shouldn't be a problem

@@MakeMoreFish there are no other fish in the tank it's a 36 gallon and what we have in there is one large mystery snail, small ramhorn snails think they came from a plant we purchased for the aquarium and so we ended up having about 10 small ramhorn snails and then I have 3 corycats. The eggs started appearing on the tank walls and plants they look like Corycat eggs from videos I've watched and today I noticed some eggs looked broken but we do see very very small particle size white things moving around the tank this morning. I see more movement around the top water surface. I haven't moved anyone or done anything except turn off the filter for now.

@@Bri-me6fu hmmm I'm suspicious. Corydoras fry are much larger than a particulate. They would look like 3/16" transparent tadpoles and would be almost exclusively on the bottom of the tank. the eggs might be from the fish but the particulates sound more like an infusorial bloom

@@MakeMoreFish I will look into that to see what I can find out. I appreciate the fast response. I haven't had fish in the tank for months now. The large mystery snail I have in the past has laid eggs and hatched successfully but these are not the same eggs they do look very smiling to the corycat eggs but I'm going to research the bloom you mentioned as they are so small things moving in the water does not look like tadpoles I have 1 large green emerald cory cat and the other two are a different type of corycat. From hat I've read abiut ramshorn snails these are not that either. But thank you.

probably just mulm particulates floating around after recent feeding or tank cleaning

FREESEA 95 GPH 4W Ultra Quiet Mini Submersible Pump for Aquariums, Fish Tank, Pond, Fountain Water Pump bought from amazon

@@MakeMoreFish ty, i like your videos keep it up big man xoxo

@@MakeMoreFish legend! I came back to this video just to hope to find this comment! I appreciate your content so much and am learning so much from you, so a sincere thank you while I'm here!

I'm guessing you're used to celsius? 77 fahrenheit = 25 celsius.

There's a way around that but first, have you tried Tide's new 3 in 1 laundry detergent pods? They outperform other leading brands, even in cold water.