Panda Cory Story and advice requested.....

[kimura]

I've had an adult group of 5 pandas for a few years now(2 are 7 years old) in various loach tanks. I recently
decided to give them their own private 20 gallon long, planted tank. There are a few nice pieces of driftwood,
sand substrate and various low light plants including wisteria, java moss, java ferns and 5 small anubis plants. It's basicly a panda paradise and probably the best tank I've ever designed. Little to no algae and the plants are growing very slow
but fairly steady. The pandas started spawning about 3 weeks after I moved them in and they havent stopped since(4 months and going strong ).

Initially I started pulling the eggs out and hatching them in a 12 gallon tank(which worked great for my bolivian ram fry) but I kept loosing all the panda fry within two weeks. I could not figure out what was wrong as the water was perfect. So in frustration I left them in their original tank hoping for a better result. I would see babies but in the last 3 months only one made it adulthood. He is already beast of a panda as he made it against savage odds and I can't wait to see how big he gets.

Then one day I noticed a loan loach eat a fry in front of my eyes. I'm not sure what this guy is but he looks like
a small dojo loach but he is obviously not a dojo. He was getting bullied some by my zebras so I had moved him in with the
pandas. Around that same time I saw a panda fry get sucked into the filter

So I pulled the loach out and put sponge over the filter intake which I had stolen from a small air pump driven filter. There
was a gap at the top so I used a rubber band to keep it tight. Well about a month later I have 9 fry that I can count
and two that are very close to being adults so I guess I figured out what my two problems were.

Anyhow, the intake sponge is restricting the water flow on my aquaclear 20 HOB filter so much I have to clean the sponge every
3 days or risk a water quailty problem. I orderd an aquaclear 30 in hopes of keeping the flow up but I really want something
to put over the intake to keep the fry out without restricting the water flow too much. I also don't want to have to clean that sponge every 3 days as I've already damaged the sponge some(plus it's annoying). Any thoughts or advice on adding a fry safe prefilter ?

Thank you.

[starsplitter7]

I took the plastic netted bag for the ceramic balls, and used the excess and put it over the filter intake. I hold it in place with a rubber band. It doesn't restrict flow too much, and I clean it every month, when I clean the intake valve.

Good luck.

[Diana]

At my LFS they also sell pond supplies. One of the items is a coarser sponge than the Aquaclear product line. Still plenty fine for protecting fry, but last about twice as long between cleaning. The Aquaclear sponge inside the filter also lasts longer when I use this somewhat coarser sponge over the intake. It looks like the cells are almost, but not quite twice as large as the Aquaclear sponge cells.

[kimura]

Thank you both for the input. After doing more searching I found something that looked like it might work.
I received it yesterday and I am very happy. The seal around the sponge looks good and my filter
output is more than double what it was.

I'll post a pic of the tank if I get a chance.....

http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/PreFilter.html

[chris1932]

I have raised thousands of panda corys and when I find eggs I leave them be, after three or four days I make sure the tank is fed bbs and within weeks there are little pandas roaming the tank. As they belong to the smallest group size of non dwarve corydoras they dont seem to have the mouth size or urge to eat their eggs or to devour the young.

[starsplitter7]

Do you have other fish in the tank or just pandas?

[chris1932]

The tank has only pandas in it.

[starsplitter7]

That's where my problem comes in. I have mixed tanks.

[kimura]

All the time I've had these pandas I've never seen them lay eggs. I had some larger corys lay eggs but they
were almost always eaten before the end of the day. I had these pandas in a 40 gallon breeder tank
with 8 zebra loachs, some rummy nosed tetras and a bolivian ram before this. They did fine there, but if they did
lay eggs, the loaches would have got them immediatly.

After doing more research I think I know why the babies were dieing in the separate tank. I read that during the
first 2 weeks the fry are very sensitive to water fluctuations(my frequent water changes). Obviously any fry is delicate but my bolivian ram fry did fine with that process so I didnt think the corys would be any different. Oops.

There are probably about 10 fry in the tank now with 4 being miniature panda's with full coloring and good activity.
When I had the water flow restricted with my temporary prefilter the panda's didnt seem to spawn that often.
Now with the flow back up they've spawned at least 2 times in the last few days. Now I may need another tank :O

I don't know if the panda's would eat their own eggs but they seem to leave the fry alone. Usually when the fry
feel the approach of an adult the run from the vibration and hide under the driftwood.

I've been feeding the tank crushed flake, hikari bottom feeder pellets, hikari carnivore pelets, frozen shrimp,blood worms
and I just grabbed some tubifex worms. The hikari carnivor pellets seems to work really well as it breaks down into
really small bits that are easy for the fry to eat. I've never had much luck hatching shrimp or other live foods so I just
gave up on it.