The pandas

The Panda corys (Corydoras panda) were really going crazy last night, chasing each other around the tank. At one point they were lying in what looked like the "classic T" formation that corys adopt when breeding, although there's nothing to suggest that they then went on to lay eggs. Nonetheless, I would really like to give them a chance to breed. I'm not really sure how I'd raise fry if I could get them to breed, but that's a problem I'll deal with if it arises. Based on what the guy at the pet store said on Saturday, there would almost certainly be a market for them. Of course, "market" is a relative term. Given the price they sell at, you wouldn't really be able to get more than trades off a pet store owner. Of course, the aquarium society does have auctions at their monthly meetings - that's an option that would generate actual cash. But first you'd need to convince them to breed.

Like anything of the sort, the information online is spotty and inconsistent. So short of buying a subscription to Ian Fuller's Corydoras World, it's likely to be difficult to get consistent information. They are described as both "easy" to breed and "difficult" to breed. Of course, it may be a matter of context - relative to guppies, they are hard to breed, but compared to some of the more difficult corys, breeding them may be easy. A couple people say that they produce small spawns - 5-10 eggs - but others say 100-300. Of course, spawn size could depend on a number of things, including whether you see the eggs before other fish eat them. It's also likely to be a function of the condition the fish are in, and may be related to water quality. I saw one comment about them liking a higher pH than is typical of corys (if true, that would be a bonus for me).