Tropical Fish Forum

Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fish Food and Feeding => Topic started by: Fiona on May 02, 2016, 01:54:47 PM

Title: Pygmy Cory Care. Advice please.
Post by: Fiona on May 02, 2016, 01:54:47 PM
My son has just got himself some pygmy cories. They seem to be suitable for our water conditions, I was just a little worried because I knew people here have had problems with them.

In our fish larder we have frozen bloodworms, daphnia and cyclops and we have live daphnia, also flaked food, micro pellets and algae pellets. So what did people here who owned the little cories feed them on?
Title: Re: Pygmy Cory Care. Advice please.
Post by: Sue on May 02, 2016, 02:53:22 PM
I have 2 left; they live in the shrimp tank with the last 2 habrosus cories.

This tank gets fed New Era (now Vitalis) flakes, JBL Novo Tabs (a quarter a time with only 4 cories) and Hikari shrimp cuisine. Of course all the fish and shrimps eat everything. For frozen food they get daphnia and cyclops and they can just about manage brine shrimp. I find that the mysis that came in the 4 variety pack and bloodworm are too big for them, though if you don't mind chopping the bloodworms up they do like that too. I usually look for the small bits of worm when I defrost a cube then feed the bigger worms to the other fish as they make my hands itch so I don't like holding the cube to chop it up.
Title: Re: Pygmy Cory Care. Advice please.
Post by: Fiona on May 02, 2016, 03:18:29 PM
I'll take a few slices off a cube them before it gets defrosted for the puffers and bumbles. Ta Sue
Title: Re: Pygmy Cory Care. Advice please.
Post by: ColinB on May 02, 2016, 03:32:10 PM
I'll take a few slices off a cube them before it gets defrosted for the puffers and bumbles. Ta Sue

The cheese knife is good for this! ::)
Title: Re: Pygmy Cory Care. Advice please.
Post by: fcmf on May 02, 2016, 04:04:32 PM
Mine were fed with TetraMin (need to cut the flakes up very small or might be better with TetraMin Baby), New Life Spectrum Small Fish Formula, Hikari Micro Pellets, Hikari Micro Wafers, and peas with the shell off and chopped into tiny morsels. They enjoyed algae wafers in their first few months, and I bought them catfish wafers (can't remember the name but think they might have been Hikari ones) which sank straight to the bottom, but they seemed to go off eating the algae wafers after some time and didn't take an interest in the catfish wafers at all.
Title: Re: Pygmy Cory Care. Advice please.
Post by: Fiona on May 02, 2016, 04:08:17 PM
They're waffling their way round the plants at the mo, do they eat brown algae?
Title: Re: Pygmy Cory Care. Advice please.
Post by: fcmf on May 02, 2016, 04:30:10 PM
Yes, mine did a good job cleaning brown algae off the silk plants during their first few months. Och - I miss the wee creatures; would only get them again if they were in a shoal of 10+ and any tankmates were micro rasbora sized, though.
Title: Re: Pygmy Cory Care. Advice please.
Post by: Sue on May 02, 2016, 04:51:59 PM
Like most fish, cories of all types will eat some algae, but not just algae. So many people seem to think that catfish = vegetarian but cories are omnivores
Title: Re: Pygmy Cory Care. Advice please.
Post by: Fiona on May 02, 2016, 06:07:43 PM
cories are omnivores

Yup my cories get a mixture of pellets which contain protein and well as vegetables. They've never been that interested in courgette although they do like peas and they love bloodworm and live daphnia.

My son got 11 pygmy cories, he was only going to get 6 but after reading about them on here I persuaded him to get more.

Its quite funny but from a distance you don't know if you're looking at a puffer, a cory or an oto. I don't think the pygmies know either, several times I've noticed a rather perturbed puffer swimming along tailed by a cloud of pygmy cories  :) They did shoal a lot when the lights first came on this morning but they seem to be settling down and exploring individually now.

My son leaves the side of the tank facing the door to grow algae, mainly as it blokes the fishes view when anyone enters the room, this wall also has a lot of detritus worms on it and I've noticed the pygmies eating them.They're also ferreting around amongst the java ferns a lot. Cute little suckers. :)