CDAS MEMBER ARTICLE
Getting back into Corys. By Tim Green
I first bred Corydoras catfish when I was in high school , which I recently
realised is more than “just a couple of years ago”. I recently bred them
again after a break of 25+ years. This realisation made me think back to
the various fish I have bred over the years.
The trip down memory lane also reminded me of the huge thirst for knowledge I had for
all things fishy in my early fish keeping years and I vividly recall the agonising wait for
the monthly aquarium club meeting to come around.
I remember being inspired by Herbert R Axelrod?s (told you I was old) collecting trips less so since the FBI arrested him recently in Germany for tax fraud. In latter times it
was Heiko Bleher„s explorations of the Amazon basin or New Guinea that caught my
imagination - you can now view Heiko?s collecting videos online.
My parents were huge supporters of my fish keeping and tolerated smelly tanks, spilled
water, high electricity bills and my incessant need to visit every aquarium shop in Melbourne. I soon found the local aquarium society (in my case the Eastern Districts Aquarium Society - EDAS) offered a wealth of knowledge and people only too willingly to
sell or swap fish and to pass on their experiences. It was not long before a couple of two
footers became four which then became multi-tiered racks in two rooms and ponds in the
garden. At the time this was just deemed a phase I was going through but as many of
our better halves can now affirm this is a medically recognised condition known as MTS
(multiple tank syndrome). We can?t help this and you should support us as it is something we are living with daily.
Now what has this got to do with Corydoras? Well after going through various phases
of keeping rainbows (many thanks to Ron Bowman), Africans, killies , planted tanks ,
Africans in planted tanks (ok that worked for about a week) I now find myself drawn
back to keeping a fish that fascinated me as a kid, Corydoras catfish.
One of the great aspects of our hobby is that no matter how long you keep fish you can
still get a great deal of satisfaction from going back in time to keep a fish from when you
first started out , and perhaps even appreciate it a little more the second time around.
This is what happened to me when I got back into Corys.