Mixing Corydoras Varieties

i won't say what you can or cant do. but in my 75 we have about 8 diff. species of corys along with a variety of other fish and they school together all the time...julies, panda/ paleatus. emeralds. brochi. asssizzi. and some others..they are my wife's and loves to go cory shopping....

Pandas - the smallest of the species you have listed, not as tough as C. aeneus or some others, but are OK, generally very popular because of the cuteness factor, also among the most expensive.

Sterbai - a good but generally shy, highly attractive Cory, medium sized among Cories.

Julii - look carefully, they're almost certainly C. trilineatus, not C. julii
- from Planet Catfish: Often you will see fish for sale as Corydoras julii but they are actually Corydoras trilineatus. So, if you bought as fish as julii, it's almost certainly C. trilineatus from the upper Amazon. The real C. julii will turn up from time to time as although it originates from the upper Parnaiba system in the lower Amazon drainage, it is found in the Rio Para where commercial fish collectors operate.

Telling them apart without locality information is actually quite hard as some C. trilineatus can show the spotted head pattern traditionally associated solely with C. julii, C. julii appears also to have a shorter horizontal mid body stripe not reaching half way along the body.

Personally, I find that the C. trilineatus I've seen have a reticulated pattern (kind of like a broken up Greek key pattern) to the spots on the head whereas julii is supposed to have dots. If they really are julii, I'd expect tehm to be even more expensive than the pandas whereas trilieatus should be a bit cheaper.

C. trilineatus, if memory serves, gets slightly larger than C. sterbai, is very attractive, somewhat less reclusive than C. sterbai.

At any rate, I'd be inclined to pick up a number of just one species (which species and how many depends on your tank's size). The three (4, really) species mentioned herein are very unlikely to school together.

I've got 3 species in together (pestai, sterbai and weitzmani) in one tank, but I have got at least 4 of each. You're probably better buying a group (6 plus) of one species if you want them to school together- mine are happy sitting with others of different species and mix together at feeding time, but don't school as such.

A school of one looks a lot better, but there isnt any problem with mixing if you choose to do so.

jpappy789 said:

A school of one looks a lot better, but there isnt any problem with mixing if you choose to do so.

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This is the way I feel about too. A school of one is much better than a mish mash. More likely to get full effect of mingling amongst themselves....

Pandas here are about the same price as nice trilineatus. Both are cheaper than sterbai. Aeneus are also about the same as trilineatus and the paleatus cories are cheapest of all. Any one of them would make a nice shoal of fish but they generally do not move together as well with different species.

Squawkbert said:

At any rate, I'd be inclined to pick up a number of just one species (which species and how many depends on your tank's size). The three (4, really) species mentioned herein are very unlikely to school together.

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As always a very informative post Squak!

I agree, although I clearly LOVE Corys and keep multiple Spp. I would focus on getting 1, maybe 2 species, and ensuring that you have at least 3-4 in a group.

After a fashion 'most' of my Corys will loosely stay together, they do not swim/socialize together as Corys of the same sepcies do. Size a large factor, as is behavior and activity levels.

Lastly, Corys are not just happier together, but behave dramtaically different when in groups.