Breeding Corydoras cf. bifasciatus (C 133)
This is a quite unique Cory that attracted my interest when I read the Story about Corydoras ornatus, which was discovered in the 70’s, but was never imported into the hobby until 2005. The few Corydoras ornatus that were caught were all sold to Japan for very high prices. The very similar undescribed short-nose species was coded C133 and may be similar to Corydoras bifasciatus, which was originally described from the same area. Pictures of preserved Corydoras bifasciatus look very similar to C 133. The trade offered them as “Ornatus short nose”. For the whole story refer to Graf (2007).
I was lucky to obtain eight specimens of this rare species in June 2006. They arrived as adult specimens, five males and three females. It was obvious that the long distance traveled had stressed them and I gave them a separate tank and good food to recover and settle down.
This is one of the bigger species, reaching easily a size of 5-6 cm and when the autumn was coming I thought it could be an idea to give them some bigger food to bring them in spawning condition. I tried some earth-worms and guess what – they loved that kind of food! Additional foodstuff was live Grindal worms and frozen Bloodworms and Tubifex.
It was just a spontaneous idea to put some dry autumn beech leaves (Fagus sylvatica) in the tank of the C 133 – the aim was to bring some more humidic acids in the water that may be different from the Alnus nigra - cones that I always use for his purpose. The Corys seemed to enjoy their environment, didn’t show any shyness and were often to be seen at the front glass of their tank.
I started regular water changes twice per week with clean, cool rainwater, about 30-40%. After about two weeks I could watch increasing activity, but didn’t see any eggs at the glass or the Java moss.
Some days later I thought it would be better to change the beech leaves to new ones. When lifting them I found eggs adhering to the underside of the leaves! A very strange site for Corys to deposit their eggs, as most Corys deposit their eggs in zones where water current is bringing fresh water to the eggs to prevent fungus infections. C133 uses another strategy by depositing the eggs at places with high humidic acids, which has a similar effect.
First I tried to collect the eggs from the beech leaves, but after short time I decided this to be too much work and just took the leaves out and put new ones in. Hatching was easy, the fry have average Cory size and freely eat Micro worms once the yolk sac absorbed, which occurs in about three days after hatching. The breeding season yielded about 60 beautiful young C 133.
Literature:
Graf (2007) Ornatus shortnose – die erfolgreiche Nachzucht von C 133. Amazonas 13, 52 - 55
