C. paleatus just spawned - what now?!

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smilingSyno
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C. paleatus just spawned - what now?!

Post by smilingSyno »

Hello. I need some help from cory experts. I know next to nothing about breeding corys and I didn't plan to either but our Corydoras paleatus have spawned tonight! We have over 40 eggs and right now they are in a net suspended in the tank where they were laid. Here are the pics:
http://www12.brinkster.com/mrsfish/coryspawn.html
We are setting up a 10 gallon tank right now (for the babies) and I have loads of questions for you all. Should we put substrate in the tank or not? Right now there is no substrate in it, just water from one of our larger tanks (no tap water) and a small powerfilter is running on it. We have a sponge filter but it's never been used so we just put it in the cory tank. How long until we can use it in the new tank? Should we put some fish in the small tank for cycling? When should we move the eggs into the small tank? Before or after they hatch? Will they hatch at all? The ph in the cory tank is way too high, it's almost 8 (our tap water has a very high ph) but then again the corys laid eggs so it can't be so bad. What do you think? The filter on the small tank has some peat moss in it to bring the ph down, it's 7.5 right now.
Will the corys spawn again tomorrow? I read they do it for several days. If they do, should we leave the eggs in the large tank (in the net?) or move them into the small tank right away?
As you can see, I'm a bit confused, I wasn't prepared for this at all. I never expected the corys to spawn because of the high ph and everything. So now it happened and I don't know what to do.
Please give me some advice, I'd love to have cory babies. Is there hope for them? Any help would be very appreciated. Thank you.
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Coryman
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Post by Coryman »

The best advise I can give would be to float a small container in the main tank, fill it from the main tank, add the sponge filter and put the eggs in. Change about half of the water daily using water out of the main tank, top the main tank up with fresh water. The fry should hatch on Sunday. C. paleatus fry are large enough to eat micro worms and brine shrimp freshly hatched.

Ian
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