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Cleaning your fishtank with Pepper Cories

3K views 25 replies 8 participants last post by  SinCrisis 
#1 ·
Well this is another scary fish experience. I just got some pepper Corie's two days ago. I was going to clean the tank today to keep the water super fresh for them. I know they can be a little touchy and though the tank is well planted, I don't want them to suffer from new tank syndrome so I did a 50% water change today.

I was going along sucking the bottom stuff off the tank when all of a sudden, I saw one of the Cories go shooting up the hose. :shock: I chased that little guy all the way through the house trying to stop him from going down the drain. Turns out, it was just a piece of dead plant. :roll: No Cories were harmed in the cleaning of this aquarium today.

The thing about these little guys however, is that unlike other fish that move away or at least avoid the end of the siphon, they hunker down into the substrate and stay put, they won't move. Mine are so small right now and difficult for me to see with my old eyes. I am hopeful that as they get bigger they will be easier to deal with. Right now, I am sitting down relaxing after by "chasing the Cory" experience. Anyone else have issues cleaning the tank with Cories? Don't you vacuum your gravel at all? My Cories blend in quite well with the substrate as small as they are.

The upside is that these guys are eating much better then I thought they would be able to. I was so concerned about their Barbels in the substrate since I do not have sand. I swear they have not stopped eating since they got in there and already in 2 days they look bigger. At least fatter.
 
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#3 ·
I've had otos and a ram get sucked up into my gravel vac but turn right around and swim back out. Other than the RCS that have literally been sucked up and into the 5 gl bucket I was siphoning in to I've never had a fish that wasn't able to turn right around and swim back out of the gravel vac. If a little oto can resist the suction I'd think a healthy cory would be able to do the same?
 
#4 ·
mine got sucked into the gravel cleaner i ran to the bathroom and saw no fish but i was smart enough to check in the gravel vacuum itself.. it was stuck there imagine the pressure it was experiencing when that happened :shock: .he was shaken but he looks ok and is eating well.
 
#6 ·
Yeah mine are currently small enough to get sucked through the entire hose. I almost had heart failure when I saw that thing going through the tube. I really thought the little guy had gotten sucked through. your poor little guy, I hope he is alright. Bet he stays clear of the siphon from now on.
 
#5 ·
My cories like to swim next to the vacuum so they could root through the bits and pieces being kicked up. I have had one get halfway sucked up into the large part and then swim out. He actually seemed to kind of enjoy it. But yeah, I usually have to kind of gently shoo them away. My female bettas are the same way. They will get right in the way trying to peck at the bits and pieces being vacuumed up.
 
#7 ·
nope he just freezes when the siphon gets near to him.scared me to death. these cory's don't know danger but maybe it's just their instinct to look for food every where and ignore danger as the think we wont harm them.which is true lol
 
#9 ·
Unless of course, they did get into my siphon because it runs directly into the drain, there would have been no saving the poor thing unless I could beat him to the drain and catch him, which is what I was running to do. I burst out laughing when I realized it was just a rotting leaf, and not my little Cory.

Thanks fish Joey, so far I really like them, when I can see them. They hide pretty well on the dark substrate. I know the Albino ones would have shown up better but I am just not a big fan of albino fish.
 
#11 ·
well i guess it was your lucky day then =) i have 15 cory's running all over the tank impossible to shoo all of them away as they treat the siphon as a food giver lol
 
#13 ·
i put in ive bloodworms that are about the size of half a lemon in at night and it's gone the next day but the cory's will be sleeping inside the food bowl :lol:
 
#15 ·
lol mine looks like they are gonna explode.the leopards are getting huge
 
#16 ·
I am happy that mine are the hungry variety because they will grow big enough for me to more easily see them. At this point, I have to strain my eyes a bit to find them all. I kind of thought they would hang out in a group more since it was written in the profiles about them needing to be in groups and social structure and all that. Maybe I got the 7 Corie's in the shop that don't like each other. lol

The largest of my Corie's that is only 1 1/2 inches long is the prettiest. I am thinking they probably get more color with age, like other fish. My Tiger Barbs were like that as well. They were not as colorful at first, now they are quite striking. At what age are most fish sexually mature?
 
#18 ·
My cories don't hang out together much, either, they'll be on their own or with another cory or two. The whole group is rarely all together.

So with that said, I probably could have just gotten 2 Cories rather then a group of 7, I thought the whole group structure was so important but maybe not as much as some folks think?
 
#20 ·
Maybe they are happy to spread out because they are secure because they know the others are there? I don't know, all I know is that my Corie's are much more independent than I'd expected them to be (but then, so are my groups of tetras as well).

Yeah, mine too. Maybe I am just not accurately observing fish behavior but several of my fish are going "against the grain" when it comes to what they are supposed to do. lol My Cories also swim all around the tank more then I expected. I guess I thought them to be almost exclusively bottom swimming fish. They actually hang out in my Wisteria quite a lot which in only 2 weeks of growth is getting close to the top of the tank.

I just changed the water again and thankfully, didn't suck up any cories or anyone else. Right now my Cories are up swimming around with my Guppies. Weird. :-?
 
#23 ·
well I am going to have to have them all fitted with different color fish collars so I can get an accurate count of them. ;-)
 
#25 ·
I'm always counting my fish. They swim in the back where I can't see them and I think they've died..... I don't know where they get to. I wish I had one of those tanks with not much in it so you could see everybody all the time.

Ha Ha, me too. If I didn't so love the look of plants, I would do that. I think the fish really enjoy the plants too. I imagine they feel much more secure in that setting.
 
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