Appropriate tankmates for Corydoras

Dick wrote in
:

On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 07:30:34 -0700, Tynk wrote:

On Jun 30, 10:48?am, "newguy62497" wrote:
Hi I'm planning to start an aquarium with a small variety of
corydoras. I was planning on putting 5 of them together in a 12
gallon aquarium. I haven't purchased anything for the tank yet so
any advice on aquarium furniture (I was thinking aquarium wood) and
appropriate live plants would be great. Would guppies be a good
tankmate for them? If not what would be a good choice? I would like
to avoid neon tetras or zebra danios as I already have another tank
with those types of fish. As I'm sure you can tell from this post
I'm pretty green when it comes to home aquaria so I would like to
avoid any highly demanding plants or fish. Thanks for any advice!

Hi there.

A 12g tank isn't going to be a lot of room for many of the Cory types.
However, there are dwarf varieties and smaller types to choose from.
Panda cories stay pretty small. The males don't get much over an inch
and half long, I'd say. The females are a little larger, but you'd do
fine with 5 Pandas (mostly males).

Neither of my species (Emerald and ?) are over an inch.


Wow. Healthy emerald corys (brochis splendens) should be two or two and a
half inches total body length...


I have never seen my Corys perch on plants. Too bad for me, I would
get to see them once in a while. Just the 2 in one of the ten gallon
tanks are out front, often zooming from side to side, up and back
down.

They are good bottom cleaners, for sure.


Are you sure you're talking about the same fish? Emerald Corys aren't a
cleaner fish. They're heavy-bodied armored catfish, ominvores with a taste
for worms, benthic inverts and insect larvae... What you're describing
(inch-long algae/bottom cleaners) sound more like Otocinclus cats, to me.

Pics;
Brochis spendens
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.u...splendens2.jpg

otocinclus sp.
http://www.holendry.republika.pl/img...clus_2_1_m.jpg

Regards
DaveZ