Anyone better?
Posted: 03 Feb 2009, 12:37
Yesterday I got my largest spawning shock ever. My group c. schultzei has a habit of spawning quite a lot of eggs when they spawn. They've only spawned twice before, and has given me about 100 fry all together. They've been saving up eggs (and I've overfed them pretty much) for a few months now, and yesterday there was a very recognizable movement in their tank. The reason why they spawn so rarely (to be c. schultzei at least) is that they live together with several other cory species. Normally the other cories eat most eggs, but they have the strange habit of not touching schultzei eggs. They didn't touch them yesterday either, which I am not so happy about today...
As I had my parents visiting me yesterday (I haven't seen them since the 3rd of January), I had no chance of keeping an eye on the spawning cories (and cories tend to spawn when it suits me the least). In the evening I finally went into my bedroom for a look. Well, there were eggs. And there were more eggs! And the more I looked, the more eggs I found!
They were piled up in large clumps. I'm never able to resist picking out cory eggs, and I couldn't resist it yesterday either. To make it easier, I picked all the leafs the eggs were laid on, and transferred them into the icecream boxes where I usually hatch cory eggs. At the same time I counted them. I had suspected that there would be about 300 eggs. Well, I was wrong...
My group of 10-12 c. schultzei had spawned more than 600 eggs!
And I had been stupid enough to pick them all! 
One of the leafs I had picked, alone contained more than 120 eggs (see pics)! How am I going to house 600 fry if they all hatch? Well, actually house 700-800 fry, to be honest. Because I already have sterbai, trilineatus atropersonatus and duplicareus fry, and I even managed to pick 70-90 trilineatus eggs yesterday too (after I picked the 600+ How stupid am I? 
).
Well, about 700 eggs in one day is quite a catch. And my poor, not-fish-interested parents had to deal with a cory owner in great shock all evening!
I just couldn't stop talking about it for the rest of the evening. I have never ever seen anything like it. 10-12 c. schultzei produced almost twice as many eggs as my group of C-140 (which is about the same size - the group, not the size of the cories 
).
Here are some pics of the leaf that contained more than 120 eggs. It doesn't look so much, but there certainly were so many when I counted them.
Most of the eggs looks fertile too. I've never before wished that some eggs must go bad. Today I do...
As I had my parents visiting me yesterday (I haven't seen them since the 3rd of January), I had no chance of keeping an eye on the spawning cories (and cories tend to spawn when it suits me the least). In the evening I finally went into my bedroom for a look. Well, there were eggs. And there were more eggs! And the more I looked, the more eggs I found!
They were piled up in large clumps. I'm never able to resist picking out cory eggs, and I couldn't resist it yesterday either. To make it easier, I picked all the leafs the eggs were laid on, and transferred them into the icecream boxes where I usually hatch cory eggs. At the same time I counted them. I had suspected that there would be about 300 eggs. Well, I was wrong...My group of 10-12 c. schultzei had spawned more than 600 eggs!
And I had been stupid enough to pick them all! One of the leafs I had picked, alone contained more than 120 eggs (see pics)! How am I going to house 600 fry if they all hatch? Well, actually house 700-800 fry, to be honest. Because I already have sterbai, trilineatus atropersonatus and duplicareus fry, and I even managed to pick 70-90 trilineatus eggs yesterday too (after I picked the 600+ How stupid am I? ).Well, about 700 eggs in one day is quite a catch. And my poor, not-fish-interested parents had to deal with a cory owner in great shock all evening!
I just couldn't stop talking about it for the rest of the evening. I have never ever seen anything like it. 10-12 c. schultzei produced almost twice as many eggs as my group of C-140 (which is about the same size - the group, not the size of the cories ).Here are some pics of the leaf that contained more than 120 eggs. It doesn't look so much, but there certainly were so many when I counted them.
Most of the eggs looks fertile too. I've never before wished that some eggs must go bad. Today I do...
