Corydoras schultzei black, first spawn!

I had a pleasant surprise today, my group of Corydoras schultzei "black form" spawned for the first time.

The group consists of two males and two females, approximately 12 months old, however only one female participated this time.

I was so delighted when I saw it and completely forgot to take pictures of the eggs, too busy collecting them I suppose.

There was no other trigger than weekly 20% water changes and regular feeding of catfish pellets, waffers and blood worms. In fact I had actually not done this week’s water changes yet. A possible trigger could have been the C. panda’s regular breeding behaviour.

Having these two species breeding in the same tank is slightly worrying as the last thing i want is hybrids. As I was monitoring the spawning today there was no interaction between the two species but I do need to move the C. schultzei group to their own tank.

Two males and one female took part in the typical cory T-position and the eggs were scattered on the front glass of the tank, right in the current of a wavemaker.

The egg count seems to be somewhere between 40 and 50, sadly at first glance many seem to be infertile but I hope the ratio will improve as the fish gain experience. They are now being kept in a breeding net in the same tank as the parents, hopefully everything will go well and there will be a positive update soon.


Readings:
Temperature: 24.5 °C
pH: 7