prevent corys from spawning

[torusle]

This may sound like an odd request but here we go:

My group of corydoras panda has been on a spawning spree lately and this causes problems.

They live in a 180 liter community tank together with a few friendly swimmers and a few larger catfish (panoqulous, bristlenose and a peckoltia compta).

All was fine for a year or so, and the corydoras panda layed eggs every now and then but never had any offspring. For a couple of weeks now - they are in spawning frenzy once a week and they reproduce a lot.

Any tips how I can stop this? It's not super urgent but if I don't get this under control over the next two month the tank will likely be overcrowded.

Reducing food is something I already did. Unfortunatly I can't cut much more because they are competing with my peckolita (he's a shy guy). What else can I do?

Best,
Nils

[bekateen]

Hi Nils,

Of all the problems to have, what a nice one you have.

From your story, I am unclear - The adults are spawning a lot, but do you have any young corys yet?

As long as the eggs are all getting eaten, I see no harm in allowing the adults to spawn often. If you have an occasional baby survive every month or two, again, that seems like something manageable (you should be able to trade or give the young to a LFS or to other fish keepers in your area).

But if the young start to survive in large numbers, yes that can be a problem. In that case you may have to separate the males from females, or add another small predator to the tank to eat the eggs.

Otherwise, your only other option might be to set up a new 10-15 gallon tank as a nursery to grow your babies, and welcome to the world of cory breeding!

Cheers, Eric

[TwoTankAmin]

Removing all the females will solve the "problem."

[torusle]

Thanks for the answers, and sorry for the late reply. I'm a weekend person.

Yes, I already have offspring. The group started at 7 and has grown to 12 over three spawning now. I expect some more juveniles hiding behind plants though. It always takes a few weeks before the youngsters join the flock

I noticed that the oxygen level was on the low side after night so I increased it. Had no spawns since then. Tomorrow is water change day which often triggers spawning frenzy. We'll see if the high oxygen level did the trick.

[Lycosid]

I noticed that the oxygen level was on the low side after night so I increased it. Had no spawns since then. Tomorrow is water change day which often triggers spawning frenzy. We'll see if the high oxygen level did the trick.

If water changes are the issue you might be able to reduce that by "diffusing" the water change a bit. I have a 110 gallon saltwater aquarium that I care for in one of the teaching labs at work and, since it's a teaching lab, my time to care for it is often limited. Since it's saltwater I also have to replace evaporated water with freshwater and don't want to dump that all in at once and change the salinity rapidly. So I took a 10 gallon bucket, drilled a small hole in the bottom, shoved air-line hose into it (it fit well enough that this was a water-tight seal), put an adjustable clamp on the hose, and dropped the end of the hose into the sump. Water goes into the bucket (which sits on a cabinet higher than the sump) and then drips into the saltwater system over the course of 4-6 hours.

Depending on how your tank is set up you might be able to do a similar thing. The fish might not notice the changes in water parameters as much this way, and the temperature change would probably be small to non-existent.