Cory Question

I'm thinking that age is the factor, if anything. Activity does not vary according to species; in my experience, all corydoras species that I've kept have been rather active.

from reading various cory threads on here i've seen that a lot of cory keepers agree that the albinos are the most active and most 'out and about' of their cories. i myself have 2 albinos in amongst the 9 cories in one tank. the others being 4 bronzes, 1 huge brochis, and 2 c. barbatus. all my cories are equally active and out and about with the bronzes and the brochis being the most 'up front and personable'.

then again, when i had the 2 albinos in a nearly bare quarantine they were always at the front of the tank and never hid, and this tank was right on the corner of my kitchen counter, in the highest traffic area of my apartment. now that they are in the main tank they are much more active than before and constantly breeding and laying eggs for the barbs to snack on, lol. my albinos are fully grown now.

I have found a distinct difference in the "shyness" of various cory species. My bronze cories (I believe the albinos are of this variety) are by far the boldest. They come out first, ignore the bossy Bolivian rams and are very active. My trilineated and sterbai are considerably less bold and I see them much less. In fact, this was bothering me so much that I recently removed the bronze's to see if I would see more of the other two species (which I prefer) and my experiment worked! Without the competition from the bronze's the other two groups all come out to feed in the open in the morning.

Interesting, I just go 4 Corydoras rabauti and I plan on getting 4 Sterbai this weekend, hopefully the Sterbai will be as active as the Rabauti...

In my experience Albinos are more active than other species, but not too much. Age might has something to do with it also, but every cory is different, may just be hyperactive!

Hands down the albinos are the most active cories. And it is not because they are young. I've had my albinos for years and they are currently housed in a 75G heavily planted tank that also has 6 sterbai. The albinos are always in the very front of the tank and while being several years old, they almost never stop moving! I rarely see any of the 6 sterbai in there. They stay in the back of the tank or under plants where they can't be seen. I have a few of the albino offspring in my 44G pleco growout tank, which is a very deep tank, and when the juvie albino cories are not eating, they are constantly swimming mid-level in that tank....constantly. When I put the baby sterbai in there, they do not do this. My breeder sterbai tank is set up with very little plants and there is some driftwood in there and most of the time they are all out of sight. They definitely scurry for cover when I approach the tank and the albinos never do.

I have some false juliis in my discus tank and they are out and about swimming together often. But they also swim away and hide when you approach the tank.

I have a dozen black shultzi's in a moderaly planted 55G, with lots of driftwood. They are also an aeneus like the albino and they are always in the front of the tank. They sleep out in the front of the tank as well and do not bolt and hide when I approach the tank. They are not quite as active as the non-stop albinos, but nowhere near as shy as the false julii's and sterbai.

The albinos are also one of the largest cories and get to be about 3" (males a bit smaller) when completely mature.

Albinos seem to be the most active i have, but the young sterbai really do come second, i like to keep them in groups now, before i had them in pairs of threeo's but they prefer their own species compnay in my opinion,, lovely fish and great fun to watch.....
Regards,
Denis

My sterbais are plenty active and anything but shy. Heck, I have to shoo them physically with my fingers off of freshly vacuumed gravel when rearranging decor back into place. Panda's are pretty active too, although they were more active when I had them in the 26 with the sterba's crawling all over them. Funny as they seemed to take to mixed pairing when they were together. One of the sterba also swims around with the zebra danio for periods of time for some odd reason.

Peppers are shy, I guess. I have 4 peppers and they are a little bit active at night. My 3 julii's are hyper active all the night.