Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => General Fishkeeping advice => Topic started by: Puffin on June 23, 2014, 11:10:57 PM
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Hello, not been on here much recently. Been enjoying my new fish!
Anyway, only about 50% stocked at the moment. The other specifies I want are neon green rasbora and a small Cory. I know the Cory need a mature tank (what is that in months??) the neon greens also seem to need a mature tank I seem to remember. Is this the same length of time, or are they talking about a cycled tank (I know fish shops don't tend to recognise the fish less cycle)
Anyone any idea how long I need to leave it before getting either of these?
Also I think there are two species of small Cory, dwarf, salt and pepper and Pygmy. They all seem to have similar requirements. Does anyone have experience of any of these?
Many thanks for reading.
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I know the Cory need a mature tank (what is that in months??) the neon greens also seem to need a mature tank I seem to remember. Is this the same length of time, or are they talking about a cycled tank (I know fish shops don't tend to recognise the fish less cycle)
Hi Puffin, no - a cycled tank is not the same as a mature tank. Cycling really just refers to the filter rather than the tank and once cycled the tank will still be immature. A tank which had been running 6 months (fish in) or thereabouts is generally considered to be mature.
This isn't set in stone in my opinion - you'll get a feel for when your tank has settled down and becomes very stable (e.g. good, consistent fish health, constant water parameters, no algal blooms etc) but generally avoid adding any fish which benefit from a mature tank very early on. I added peppered corys (not actually sure whether these are the same as the salt & pepper variety) and cardinal tetras at around 3-4 months and both groups have done really well.
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Thanks dbaggie,
Yes I know it isn't the same, but I just wonder about the green neons, and if mature is what they mean!?
I think peppered are different to salt and pepper but I am not 100% are yours very small? Ie about an inch? I think I've heard they are quite delicate and not so easy to keep, but I may be getting mixed up. So much info floating round in my brain!
Ok, I will bear in mind that I should be able to get a good feel for when it's mature. Nowhere near yet obviously!
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So this is the piece of advice I'm referring to re the neon green rasbora:
"Since it naturally inhabits running water this species should never be added to a biologically immature set-up as it requires stable water conditions, and weekly water changes of 30-50 % aquarium volume should be considered mandatory."
From Seriously Fish.
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Cycling just grows the bacteria needed to get rid of the ammonia made by the fish and the nitrite made from that. But our tanks also need to grow maybe hundreds of other micro-organisms and we don't do anything specific to encourage those in the way we add ammonia in a fishless cycle. A tank is considered mature once these other micro-organisms have established themselves. We concentrate on the filter bacteria as the fish would die, or at least get sick, without them; most fish cope with limited numbers of the other micro-organisms for the few months it takes to grow them. Some fish do seem to need these other micro-organisms; neon tetras are the most often quoted example. But no-one knows exactly why.
I have neon green rasboras and mine are thriving. I had them just before I swapped tanks. I did have the water, decor and filter from the old tank but I used brand new sand and I lost the biofilm with it's micro-organisms on the glass walls of the old tank. A sort of half mature tank. I also do a 50 litre water change on 180 litres a week, which is 27%.
I did lose a couple when I bought them, but they were the ones that looked a bit iffy anyway. And one has even survived being sucked up during a water change, then jumping out of the net onto the floor when I fished it out :-[
There are three dwarf cories. Pygmy (Corydoras pygmaeus) salt and pepper (C. habrosus) and C. hastatus. Peppered cories are C paleatus and are indeed bigger than salt & pepper cories.
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Thanks dbaggie,
Yes I know it isn't the same, but I just wonder about the green neons, and if mature is what they mean!?
Ah, slightly misunderstood what you were asking! It does sound like it from the seriously fish excerpt you've provided - obviously Sue's response provides a lot more detail about the maturing of a tank :)
There are three dwarf cories. Pygmy (Corydoras pygmaeus) salt and pepper (C. habrosus) and C. hastatus. Peppered cories are C paleatus and are indeed bigger than salt & pepper cories.
Didn't think they were the same but I haven't actually come across any dwarf Cory's in any of my LFS' - the Peppered variety still aren't huge, quite a bit smaller than other types such as Bronze Cory's in fact but definitely larger than 1 inch.
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Thanks both. I'll wait a few weeks anyway as I want to make sure there are no problems with the tank and fish as they are now. Think I need to get some floating plants next, to encourage a bit more swimming nearer the top of the tank.
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Decided to up the numbers of the species I already have, first before adding new species, and see my other thread for how that turned out for me!!
Anyway, while I was at the lfs, I saw they had Pygmy corys. Omg they are small!! About 1cm long, in the sale tank, and 2cm in a display tank. They seem to like swimming in the water column at least as much as sitting on the bottom. They are a really pretty little fish.
Anyone got any experience of keeping them?
Would the fact I have trouble keeping bits of the under substrate off the top of the sand substrate be a problem for them?
I'd almost made up my mind not to get Cory but a couple of rabbit snails, but the shop didn't gave them, and did gave corys.
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I have pygmy cories. They are bigger than you saw, about 2.5cm. Yes they do swim in the water column more than some species but they also hide a lot, and I've read that from other people too. Make sure they have things to hide under. Though thinking about it, my ember tetras were never happy in the 50 litre tank either, they hid behind something all the time but since I moved them they are all over the place. Perhaps the tank gets too much movement past it with being in the kitchen and pygmy cories maybe don't like that.
I feed them sinking pellets rather than let them have left over flakes - though they will eat any flakes that make it to the bottom. They are not vegetarian; no cory species is. A popular misconception.
Not sure about the effect of the under substrate. Unless there is a lot of it and it's sharp, there shouldn't be a problem.
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Keen to get some Pygmy cory in a few weeks time, but would I be basically introducing another mid water species to my tank of mid water fish?
Any suggestions of fish that like the top of the tank?
In lfs today and noticed they had panda Cory in same tank as rabbit snails. Now I thought rabbit snails liked it hot whereas Cory's like it cooler, but couldn't have a sensible conversation with the assistant, it was pets at home, and the older guy with all the knowledge wasn't in.
All I got was "these are all tropical species, so they need a tropical tank" yes thanks for that!
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Well. my pygmies don't swim that much mid water. To be honest, they don't swim much at all :( They are in the 50 litre tank in the kitchen and this is the same tank that the ember tetras swam in the same cubic inch behind a piece of decor. I think it's the place I have the tank, too much passing traffic for the embers and cories liking :( The Sundadanios are fine in there though.
I'm afraid I don't know anything about rabbit snails, so I've no idea what temps they like :-[
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Hi puffin, I don't know much about rabbit snails except from what I've read online but here's a website dedicated to them http://www.rabbitsnails.com/rabbitsnails-hou.html
Top water fish I have both danios ( a mixture of zebra, leopard and albino's) along with some one lined pencil fish both lovely fish and the pencil fish have become a favourite of mine as the hover and swim at a 45 degree angle' when they want to go somewhere fast they lower down to go horizontal and fire off like torpedoes! A lot of fun to watch.
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do your leopard and zebra danio's shoal together nicely ?
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We'll if you count shoaling as burning around the top of the tank chasing each other through the bubble streams and the spray bar then yes :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: I have 6 of them 2 of each but I think I'm going to increase it to 9 and get another 1 of each, they have always been a favourite of mine and I do get distracted by them whenever I go in to shops with them in display tanks where they have enough room to swim around properly.
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Those two fish should be fine together as they are the same species ;)
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i have been staring at both of them in the fish shops for the last 3 weeks unable to choose which one i liked better so been unable to buy i never gave it a thort to mix them to be honest , i was thinking of a fairly large size shoal so could mix them both and probably still keep great numbers of both ;) off to do some thinking :fishy1:
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They are the same fish tbh Chris, the leopards have been selectively bred to give that colour/form although there's not much info on the way it was done other than it was possibly done in Eastern Europe lol. You could have a good large shoal of them mixed as there's also a long finned version you can get but I haven't seen it as much.
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Think they are a bit fast swimming for my small tanks, sorry forgot to mention, is a 40cm cube.
Come to think of it, maybe top swimming fish are fast swimming fish, so I'm not going to find any suitable for my tank?
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Think they are a bit fast swimming for my small tanks, sorry forgot to mention, is a 40cm cube.
Come to think of it, maybe top swimming fish are fast swimming fish, so I'm not going to find any suitable for my tank?
Yep - any slow fish that swims at the surface is gonna get eaten. Not a good survival strategy!
The only surface fish that spring to mind are small, fast shoalers, and hatchet fish.... and they fly!
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Makes sense, maybe if I get more floating plants the fish I've got will spend more time at the surface.
(Seriously, what's wrong with autocorrect!? Why would I want to say "makes sneeze" ?!?)
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So I got some Pygmy Cory today.
Went straight to lfs after school run, and remembered that there is another maidenhead aquatics slightly nearer to Cardiff that I hadn't been to yet, and it's on the way to the Caerphilly one.
So went there.
First impressions were good... HUGE marine tank with lots of lovely fish that I recognise from swimming with them! (They looked a lot bigger then)
Lots and lots of very large tanks with oak stands that were very expensive but looked great, a huge supply of everything in packets and boxes that you need for fish keeping, I didn't need anything. Plenty of fish too, seemed very keen on marine. Prices were a bit confusing! £4 each for White Cloud Mountain minnows. (They didn't call them that, is there an identical fish that's more expensive?) but then 12 neons for £10.
I didn't find any dwarf cory there so headed on to my usual shop. The assistant recognised me..."you keep nano fish don't you?" I like the sound of that!
I got six in the end. No obvious problems with them when I was acclimating them. They are really very small, smaller that the CPD's and some of the larger ember tetra. They also seem more outgoing, not that I have spent much time with them, they are in the living room, which is where the kids are watching annoying kids tv, roll on bedtime.
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Hi everyone, not been on here in a while, been fairly uneventful here.
Sadly though, four of the Pygmy cories I bought back in September have died. They are a really lovely fish, but I wonder now if my water conditions are quite right for them. Or maybe it's because I needed to rethink my feeding regimen.
Previously I fed flake, flake, frozen bloodworm, starve day, crushed pea, flake, flake, frozen daphnia, starve day etc.
But I didn't figure that the Pygmy cories may not be eating on flake or pea day, so I got some sinking pellets and now feed them on flake days.
The snails are loving them!
Also a couple of days ago the pump on my shrimp tank gave up, so my shrimp are in the aquanano too.
Ie 10 (ish) ember tetra, two CPD (found another dessicated jumper behind the sideboard recently) 2 Pygmy cory, 4 amano shrimp.
I also wonder if there could have been something wrong with the cories. On three occasions I saw a fish acting crazy, going up and down the tank, flipping into its back, playing dead on the sand, then swimming away normally. The next day after this I found a dead fish. I've assumed it was the same one. The other missing cory has just disappeared without trace.
I've googled this behaviour without much of a result.
What do you think... Is there something obvious to you guys that I'm doing wrong? Water changes are 20%weekly, ammonia and nitrite always zero.
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I do wonder if cories are getting weaker these days.
I have some pygmies; I got them in mid 2012, two died within a week and the rest have vanished one at a time until I had three left (and I've just got 5 more).
They share a tank with Sundadanios and cherry shrimps. Pygmy cories are much more suited to my tapwater than sundadanios, which need much more acidic and softer water than I have. But apart from a couple that died just after purchase, the sundadanios are thriving while the cories die.
This does say something about the health of cories :-\
You could try getting some more cories, and feed them pellets this time ;) I feed crushed pellets, flake and shrimp pellets to my tank.