Hello,
Can anyone tell me where I can buy either hastatus or pygmy cories in the south of England please? I've phoned most of the Maidenhead Aquatics and none have either. I'd be prepared to drive further afield if someone tips me off. Thanks.

Went to the goldfish bowl for the first time in ages yesterday. Very disappointed. Several display tanks full of coloured gravel, shipwrecks, atlantis type statues and bubbling plastic crocodiles. On top of that loads of nano tanks. Apart from a couple of marine tanks and a nice planted display tank...

Hi. Maidenhead Aquatics in Thatcham near Newbury had some a few weeks ago. Not sure if they still have but might be worth giving them a ring.

They're chasing their reflections looking for more of their own kind. You need to get more. A group of at least six would be more like it.

Hi Ryemeyer, I've never kept otos but I have an ancistrus in a well planted tank with hardly any algae. Apart from salad leaves, zuchini and algae wafers he'll eat mango, butternut squash, sugar snap peas, garden peas, mange tout and melon. Maybe you could try offering some of these to your oto's an...

I tried keeping amano shrimp with corydoras pygmaeus once but found that the shrimp took all of the food (pellet, bloodworm, brineshrimp etc), aggressively at times. This was in a well planted tank and I had been target feeding the shrimp with courgette, algae wafers as well as all the algae they we...

Great pictures. Didn't he mind being held out of the water like that?

My Pandas love courgette and butternut squash. I put these in for the bristlenose and I think they get injured from the bristlenose defending it. See injured panda post.

Hello, I have a 20g housing an ancistrus, 4 platys, 5 c. panda and 7 lampeyes. Recently I've been checking the tank in the morning to find some of the pandas with their tails and dorsal fins split and damaged. I thought this might be down to bullying by one of the platys during feeding. I've started...

Sorry the pictures displayed a bit small. Can anyone tell me how to make it bigger please?

Hello,
I've finally got myself a digital camera so thought I'd share some pictures of my fish. hopefully it'll work. Here's Chris.

Hi Durlanger,
Do you mean putting peat in the filter? I'm using a fluval 2 internal filter so I'm not sure if I can incorporate peat but thanks for the suggestion. I'm just trying to get the water in the tank back down to thew same pH as my tapwater.

Hello again, I've bought some play sand from Wickes and have put a thin layer (5mm) in the tank with the pygmys. Since moving them I've got the pH down to 7.8 from well above 8 and they're looking much happier. Their colours are much more pronounced and they'e much more active. Before I left for wor...

Thank you everyone for your help. Play sand it is then. I like the idea of separate planted areas and will probably build a terrace using bits of bogwood. By the way I did an experiment with the old substrate and some I'd used in the past. I half filled some jars with different substrate and topped ...

Reply for Ian. Well I've moved the pygmys to another tank with no substrate and loads of anubias on wood. They seem fine and are still in the water from their old tank. While I'm sorting out some sand or inert small gravel I'll take the chance to slowly adjust the pH from the 8.4 in their old tank t...

Hi Ian,
I've had problems in the past using fine sand. I kept the sand to anout 1/2" depth but found that under driftwood and stones (where I couldn't get to it to stir it up) the sand was going black and stagnant.

Thanks Ian.

Hello there. I have a 10 gallon tank with 13 pygmy cories in it. I recently changed the substrate to silica sand for them. My tapwater has a pH of 7.4-7.6 (with a total hardness of ~200ppm) but after adding the silica sand the pH has gone up to 8.2-8.4, and stays high even after water cjanges. My se...

Great pictures and great looking fish. How do you get them to sit in your hands like that?

Hello, I have 2 tanks, 1 with just pygmy cories (35L) and the other a community tank with pandas, platies and a bristlenose and a shoal of lampeyes (75L). The pH of my tapwater varies between 7.4 and 7.8. However the pH of my tanks seems to rise to 8 to 8.2 in between water changes. The water is ver...

Thanks for your replies. I usually use aquaplus but my pH is 8.2 so I thought about switching to ammolock as a water conditioner as this may help with the increased toxicity of ammonia at higher pH. My water readings are always nh3=0, no2=0, no3<30ppm but occasionally my pandas scratch at the bottom...

Is it safe to use ammolock as a chlorine/chloroamine remover when doing water changes with cories?

Hi Cory and Dory, I've had exactly the same problem with my cory tank. Water parameters were always fine, 0ppm NH3, 0ppm NO2, <10ppm NO3, pH7.8, not sure about hardness. There were no visible signs of infection. Spent months doing plenty of water changes and treating with melafix, no effect. I think...

Hello, I've got 2 bristlenoses, a mature male with an amazing set of bristles in with some platys, and a young (hopefully) female in a tank with some cories. Besides courgette (zucchini), I've found that my bristlenoses love mange-tout, sugar snap peas and melon. My pygmy cories also eat the courget...

Cheers Corymad,
Good luck with the treatments, hope your Adolphi pulls through. Cheers for the tip with the sand, I've been finding spots where the sand has gone black each time I do a water change and rake through the sand. I think this has been the source of my problems.
Pete.

Sorry, should have mentioned I've tried Sterazin with no effect.

Hi Corymad, I'm currently having exactly the same problem with my cories, water conditions all fine but the cories (panda and pygmy) are flicking against the sand and plants. Despite the flicking they are very active and behave normally. I've installed a more powerful filter and been treating with m...

Sorry, I should have added that other occupants are 6, 1 month old platy fry. The substrate is silver sand. Furnishing consists of driftwood, various anubius, some pebbles. The tank is kept at 24-25C, and filtered with a fluval 1 plus and an air driven sponge filter. I don't know the KH/GH

Hello, I've got 8 cory pymaeous and 4 pandas in a 40litre. Although they're really active, feed well and not shy, a couple of weeks ago they started flashing/scratching against the sand or plants every so often (no constantly). My water parameters are nh3=0, no2=0, no3<5-10, ph=7.5. I do 25% water c...

Thanks magnum,
I was worried about any spiking harming the fish with this method but it does seem the most sensible way to do it.
Pete