More Than One Way to Spawn a Cat (Fish)
The Panda Corydorus had been a catfish I could not seem to get to spawn, even though I have been lucky enough to spawn other types of Cory Catfish. My usual procedure had been to feed them live Black Worms to get them ready to spawn, drop the water level and, replace it with cooler water to simulate Spring Rains. This also seemed to work best when a rain storm was about to come in and the Barometric Pressure dropped. Over a period of two years, I have purchased Pandas at auctions, retail stores etc to insure I had good fertile fish.
I set them up in two tanks and followed the above procedure; feeding them flake food, live baby brine shrimp etc. I also tried adding ground Peat Moss to the water to soften it and, hopefully, provide infusoria for any fry. Well to make this spawning technique short, it SEEMED like I never got any fry. Since I am a poor record keeper, I apparently never noticed the increase in the number of juvenile Pandas in the tank. They had been spawning, growing and never sent out any announcements of the new births.
The second technique. At various auctions where I had purchased Pandas, I asked the breeders how they did it. Pat Winters from Wolcott NY, told me he just put his in a tub with Java Moss, fed them flake, and any live food that either entered the tub or he added such as baby brine shrimp. I set up a third tank as he described, loaded it with Java Moss and put 6 Pandas in it. As suggested, I fed them Live Baby Brine and my usual ground flake food. Lights were on 12 hrs per day. Again, not taking enough time to examine the tanks, I just did normal water changes. About four months later while showing someone around the fish room, he noticed several little guys scooting around the bottom. Pat’s technique worked!
I then decided to recheck the Peat Moss tanks and sure enough, there were more little Pandas in there. The fish turned in for BAP at the May 2006 meeting are half from each tank just to show that Panda Corys can be spawned by either method. While I never saw any eggs plastered on the glass the way Albino Corys do, I assume they were there or placed in the Java Moss.
I am now raising about a dozen more little Pandas and hope more come around.