Spawning Corydoras and shrimp

[Flyfisher]

I'm moving a group of spawning Orange stripe Corys into a 2ft planted tank fairly soon. I hope to see them produce a few fry and would really like to see them grow on in the tank.
Would having Red Cherry Shrimp in there be of much detriment to the success?

Also, my group is rather large at about 16 fish, I think that's too many for the 2ft, but how many do you all feel I should whittle that down to? It should be easy to make sure I have the breeders as at least 6 of these are younger smaller fish so I could separate these out fairly easy I think.

Thanks

Gavin

[Corycory]

6 should do as long as you have males and females.
I don't think the shrimp would interfere either way. My corys aren't eating even the baby shrimp and shrimp will definately won't touch your eggs or baby corys. They may try cleaning the eggs though

[Flyfisher]

Cleaning the eggs sounds like natures helping hand. I like that

I think I can pick 6 and get the breeders.
If I'm not so sure, I'll go to 7 or 8 at the most.
I was watching 3 fish together tonight that looked like 2 males and a female. Guaranteed though, when I want to catch them, they'll all be spread about the tank giving me absolutely no clues.

Thanks

[Corycory]

Good look with catching them
It took me a couple of hours the last time I had to move some corys and all I caught was 3-4 of them. They surely can swim well.

[CoryWally]

Don't want to contradict, but I've found shrimp to climb over eggs which then won't hatch, so if you're serious about breeding do it without any other inhabitants.

[Flyfisher]

Hmmm it would be a great shame to witness exactly what you've described. It will be a while before I'm catching the corys out of the big tank. So I'll let the 20 cherry shrimp I just chucked in there do a thorough cleaning job in there first. Doh! [GRINNING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]

It's fun catching those buggers too!!

[apistomaster]

I had no trouble maintaining a large(125+ breeders) colony of C. hastatus with Cherry shrimp for several years.
I now have a friend breeding them and he was maintaining their numbers well until he introduced Tiger Shrimp.
Apparently Tiger Shrimp are either/or egg and fry eaters and we barely salvaged the colony which is beginning to build after reaching a low of about 45 breeders.

Colony breeding average size Corys has never been as efficient for me as the dwarf species but if you provide abundant growth of Java Moss and/or Ceratophyllum plus a few containers of hollow ceramic bio-media will provide abundant enough cover to ensure a reasonable number of eggs and fry hatch and survive long enough to avoid them being eaten by the breeders. Cory fry make great use of the small caves that the hollow ceramic bio-media provides.
Also use sponge filters or sponge pre-filters over HOB filter intakes.

I always fed my colonies of breeders bbs twice daily to ensure an abundant food supply for my fry.
Even average size adult Corys will eat bbs so none will go to waste. I used to feed my average size Cory species breeders live black worms daily.

[Flyfisher]

Thanks for that ApistoMaster,
That gives me hope, I've set up this tank with a pile of Dragon stone and a couple of pieces of bogwood so it has abundant nooks and crannies and has ferns, small leaved anubias and plenty moss.

Thanks for the feeding tips, I'll refer back to this when need be.
I'm really wanting to do as little as possible and just see what comes of it.

They've spawned on the front glass in strong flow in my 5ft. I've popped some eggs into a small tank with baby cherry shrimp in and so far I've spotted 4 or 5 young corys. No work at all and I've obviously lost alot of the eggs but I'm hoping in their own tank and without having to remove eggs that the survival ratio goes up a little.

Cheers

[peterbu]

Is there some kind of limitation to how many different breeds you can have in one tank, or does it just come down to which ones are 'compatible'? I guess the more you add the more you have to mix and match so it becomes more difficult.