Schwartzis – and more babies!

The Schwartzi cory is a relatively unusual home-aquarium fish, as far as cories go. I managed to acquire 6 of them, and they have all settled down very nicely. So nicely, in fact, that today I found a few babies swimming around with them! I didn’t notice their eggs, but I had noticed that they’d been quite active recently. I’ve now moved the adults out into another tank, to leave the babies in a bit of peace. I will post photos of the babies once they’re big enough to be easily seen in a photo. This is probably my biggest breeding achievement, as the Schwartzis are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity, and there are very few records of their breeding.

They’re a bit more sedentary than other cories, but if there’s a big enough group of them they will be fairly active. The fish in the pic above was in such a deep rest that he allowed me to take this rather excellent photograph, with a very small aperture (f22), long exposure time (4 seconds) and low ISO 100. You can see that their iridescent patterning is very striking: I think they’re amongst the best lookers of the catfish world.

These 5 were all in a photogenic mood. They can be quite shy, so you’ll see in the background that they have plenty of hiding places. They seem to particularly enjoy resting under their scallop shell; the green plastic housing provides a bit more security, and the driftwood has a few good spots too. The driftwood is also good as it leaches tannins into the water, which helps to replicate the Schwartzis’ natural conditions. I use peat for this purpose as well, described in my earlier post on Panda cories.

I also thought I’d post this photo of my adult bristlenose GBA. He can be quite reclusive, but he stuck his nose out enough this time for a good photo. He certainly looks intimidating with those forked bristles – but really, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

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Tags: bristlenose, catfish, corydoras, fish breeding, fish photography, GBA, peat, schwartzi