The Fifth Time’s the Charm
Breeding Corydoras barbatus
By Tom Wojtech
From "Splash," Milwaukee Aquarium Society
Aquarticles
One of my favorite groups of fishes is the dwarf armored cats: Corydoras, Aspidoras
and Brochis. I always have a few varieties of these fish in my tanks. Currently I
have about a dozen species in my fishroom. I seldom try to induce spawning with these fish
since I am happy just to be able to enjoy having them around. This is my tale of what
happens when I try.
Corydoras barbatus started to show up in the Milwaukee area about eight years
ago and since I had never had them before, I needed them. They were not cheap but fairly
reasonable. I took home a half dozen of these beauties. I set them up in an established
tank and watched them die one by one over the next couple weeks. There were no signs of
disease; they just died. I attributed the loss to problems due to a weakened condition
from importation. More showed up a few weeks later, but by this time I did what I always
recommend but seldom do, I looked them up in a few of my books to find out more about
them.
Corydoras barbatus is noted for being one of the largest Corys. They can get
to five inches. It is also one of the few that is dimorphic. The males are darker having a
lot of black marking on the head and front half of their bodies. They also have a row of
bristles along their "cheeks" at the bottom edge of the gill covers. Males also
have much longer pectoral fins, which can be seen from an early age. Females look like a
large Pepper Cory.
Corydoras barbatus is a coastal form of Cory and at that time was coming from
two areas. One a cool water environment near Rio de Janeiro where frost occurs sometimes
during the winter. The second was a more upland region where more tropical temperatures
could be expected. My original group came from the coast, so I probably killed them with
too much heat. Armed with this information I invested in a second group. These I put in a
lower tank that was running about 75 degrees. They survived and thrived, that is until the
heater stuck and the tank went up to 90.
Having been burned twice in rapid succession, I put thoughts of barbatus on
the back burner. Two people in the club were equally enamored of this fish and had bought
stocks for themselves. Both bred them and were able to distribute some fry. I managed to
get another small group. They died too.
A year or so later barbatus showed up again and I passed. It was hard but I was strong.
Dan Cram was into a Cory phase and picked up some. He was having a lot of success with
Corys and this was one he wanted. He raised them to the nicest barbatus I had
ever seen, just like the pictures and at least four inches long, but for whatever reason
he traded them in to Gary at Pets ‘n Things. When I saw them, I nearly wet myself.
They were gorgeous but I had no room so they stayed. By the way Gary also had taken some
home and successfully raised a bunch of babies.
About two years ago some wild caught barbatus arrived on the scene and I
couldn’t resist. I put them in the bottom 10-gallon tank closest to the corner of my
fishroom and took out the heater. This tank would go as low as 70 degrees during the
winter and only get up to about 75 in the summer. It was the best I had. I had a large
sponge filter and tap water in this tank and slowly over the next few water changes added
soft water, about 80 ppm TDS. They are still in that tank.
I had had them about a year last May when one day I noticed a spawn. I was elated.
There were about 35 eggs. I would usually try to remove the adults and hatch the eggs in
the tank where they were spawned but I had no place for the adults. Many Cory breeders
scrape the eggs off the glass and hatch them in a separate container so I decided to try
this. The eggs were fresh and sticky. I rolled them off the glass with my fingers, being
as gentle as I could to move them to a specimen cup for incubation. They tenaciously stuck
to my fingers. I’d roll one off and feel around and find it had just rolled higher up
my finger. I am not noted for having a lot of patience with tedious tasks, so I won’t
go into the details of flicking sticky eggs off into a small specimen cup, but I’m
glad there were no witnesses.
In spite of the extra agitation the eggs suffered, they all hatched. The group spawned
again but I left them in the tank where they were eaten. The fry were kept in the specimen
cup for 3 days when they hatched. I wanted to keep them in the cup until they were eating
but it is hard to tell when a bottom dweller is freeswiming. I moved them into a bare 10
with a sponge filter after 4 more days. All the fry died. Luckily, the group was in a
spawning cycle and spawned again at the beginning of June. I pulled 50 eggs this time and
put them in a large specimen cup with aeration. I decided to keep them in the cup longer.
Again, all the eggs hatched. These I kept in the cup for two weeks. They were eating and
even growing. Every day I would exchange about 50% of their water with water from the
parent’s tank. At two weeks, I set up the bare 10 with 50% of the water from the
parents’ tank and about 10% fresh water.
I lost about half the fry. A partial success but an acceptable group was left for me to
raise. These did well through the end of July and were nearly an inch long. I really
wanted to turn them in for BAP points but there is no July meeting. I had about 25 fry, so
I wasn’t worried. Over the next couple weeks, I started to loose the fry; one by one
they died. By the time of our August meeting, I had 4 fry left. Damn! Not enough for BAP.
They’ll spawn again, I thought. They did. I watched them one evening as they
spawned. As soon as a female placed her eggs on the glass, another female came over and
ate them.
Advance to this June. I was feeding the fish and noticed a blur on the glass (I take
off my glasses when I feed so I can see). I squatted down to inspect and there were about
30 eggs. This was a small spawn and I was tired so I left it alone. The next day after
work, they were still there so I picked them off. About 20 eggs hatched. I left these in
the cup for a week, until they were eating. I then transferred them to a two-gallon tank
filled with water from the parent’s tank. I did make one concession to Kevin Korotev,
and turned up the sponge filter and added another air source to increase the current. I
also had a small clump of Java Moss in the tank. There was no problem with the group after
the first week and there were 13 left. A week ago I lost four one day and I thought, not
again. I did a water change and kept my fingers crossed. There are still 9 fry left,
enough for BAP and the meeting is tonight. This wasn’t a rousing success but at least
I can now pass the adults to Kevin for further spawning. Good Luck.
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