peppered cory (Corydoras paleatus) sexing

[Leone]

Hi,
I have 3 of these little fellas (Corydoras paleatus) in my 20g tank. Currently they are only about 4cm long. Can anyone please tell me how I go about sexing them. I think they may be too small at the moment, but any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

cheers
Leone

[andywoolloo]

I have peppered cories. My girls are longer and chubbier then my males. The males are shorter and thinner. If you look from the top down you can tell good. My girls are about 2 inches long and chubby and the boys are about an inch long and slim.

Plus you can tell when 3 boys are on one female, chasing her around the tank and running their whiskers along her. It gets pretty x rated after, I'll let you discover that for yourself.

[Leone]

thanks.

and at what size would they generally be before they wanted to do the "x" rated thing and make babies??

[andywoolloo]

mine have been doing it all along. I got them last summer around June. They have been doing it ever since. How long have you had them?

What I first remember is a bunch of males chasing a female around and around the tank at super hyper speed, then she would come to rest and they would run their whisks all along her body, then finally she picks one and..well..she... she kinda takes his... milt is it? and it somehow goes thru her fertilizes her eggs which she drops into the bottom fins and then she carries them around till she finds a spot, then she cleans the spot then she places the eggs. All during the hunt for a spot and cleaning a spot and placing eggs the males are still whiskering her. All in all not a bad deal for the female cory or the male for that matter.

I have 3 girls and 9 boys. Every day i find eggs on the glass and plant leaves.

[andywoolloo]

these are from this site:

female:



male:

[Leone]

thanks for that.

I have only had mine for a couple of weeks, and I think they are still pretty young, they dont look as old as the ones in the pic - mind you, I took ages to see the difference between the male and the Female in the pic.. yes, I know, the female is chubbier....

[andywoolloo]

here is one of my males



and a girl of mine, coming into pic on the left



and in the back right a female and under the log to the left a male

[Mike_Noren]

these are from this site:
male:

This may be a hybrid with one of the several long-finned similar-looking species, or a cultivated variety; it is unknown to me if any paleatus populations in nature have males with strongly elongated dorsal fins, but it is known to me that at least some populations don't.
In short, a very tall dorsal fin is not a sure sign of a male paleatus.