rm
Passport
- Family
- Corydoras Catfish
- Grows to
- 5 cm (2")
- Lives
- 10+ years
- Temperament
- Peaceful
- Care
- Intermediate
- Swims
- On the bottom
- Keep
- In a group of 4 or more
- Water
- 22–25 °C (72–77 °F)
Peru
Care requirements
i
On record for Panda Cory: adult size, lifespan, minimum tank, temperature, ph, hardness, minimum group, diet, care level, swim level, tank length.
A figure that is not on record is left out rather than guessed. One marked Suggested comes from keeping knowledge rather than a page.
- Minimum tank 42 L / 11.2 US gal
- pH 6–7.4
- Hardness 1–12 dGH
- Diet omnivore
- Tank length 45 cm minimum
Care notes written from general aquarium knowledge, not from the cited sources.
About
Panda corys are the ones people fall for. A cream body with a black patch over each eye, a black blotch at the tail and another on the dorsal — the markings genuinely read as a panda, and a group of them tumbling over each other on the sand is about as charming as a bottom-dwelling fish gets.
They come from cooler water than most of the genus, high in the Peruvian Andes foothills, and that's the practical catch. Kept at the temperature a tropical community runs at, pandas are stressed, short-lived and prone to disease.
They're also more delicate than the bronze corys people compare them to. Get the temperature right and they're straightforward; get it wrong and they're the cory that keeps dying for no obvious reason.
Tank setup
Keep your pandas at the cool end and never let the tank run hot. This is the single most important thing about them and it rules out sharing a tank with genuinely warm-water fish like discus or rams.
Give them sand. Corys sift substrate through their gills to feed, and gravel wears the barbels away until they can no longer do it.
Keep them in a decent group. They're intensely social, they rest in piles, and a couple of pandas behave like a different, duller fish.
Leave the middle of the floor open and plant round it. They cover ground constantly and they want the room.
Leave an air gap at the surface. They dash up to gulp air as a normal part of breathing.
Feeding
Panda corys are omnivorous bottom feeders that need their own food rather than the leavings of the fish above them.
Feed sinking pellets and wafers as the base, with frozen bloodworm, daphnia and brine shrimp several times a week. They're small, so grade the food down.
Watch that it reaches them. Fast mid-water fish strip a tank before slow bottom feeders arrive, and a thin, hollow-bellied cory is nearly always an underfed one.
Avoid: feeding only at the surface, and avoid coarse gravel that stops them foraging.
Filtration and flow
Moderate flow across the bottom suits them, and they come from clear, well-oxygenated streams so they appreciate movement.
Keep the water clean and the nitrate low. Pandas are less tolerant of a neglected tank than the hardier corys, and their barbels show it first.
Cool water holds more oxygen, which is a convenient side effect of keeping them at the right temperature.
With plants
Panda corys are safe with plants and won't damage or uproot them.
Plant the perimeter and keep the centre of the substrate clear. That's what a foraging cory needs, and it suits the fish far better than a carpeted floor.
Broad leaves and wood give them daytime shade, which they use.
Health
They're the most disease-prone of the common corys and warmth is usually the underlying reason. A tank running hot produces pandas that catch everything going.
Barbel erosion usually points at the substrate or at how clean it is being kept, and an abraded barbel can become infected on top of that. Clean sand is the sensible answer; treat shortened barbels as a prompt to check the tank rather than a verdict.
They tolerate salt poorly. With medication the useful question is not how much to cut it by, but whether the product was meant for catfish in the first place — the labels differ sharply, and the ones that permit corys usually expect the full amount.
Breeding
Pandas spawn readily and a cool water change is the trigger. Replacing part of the tank with noticeably cooler water imitates snowmelt and meltwater runoff, and a conditioned group will often spawn the next morning.
The female holds a small number of eggs between her pelvic fins, takes milt from the male, and presses each egg individually onto glass, plants or wood.
Adults will eat the eggs, so move them. The fry need spotlessly clean water — they're noticeably more sensitive than bronze cory fry — and start on infusoria before moving to microworm and baby brine shrimp.
Tank mates
Avoid10
- Convict Cichlid Convict Cichlid grows to 15 cm against Panda Cory at 5 cm, big enough to eat it.
- Jewel Cichlid Jewel Cichlid grows to 15 cm against Panda Cory at 5 cm, big enough to eat it.
- Least Killifish Panda Cory grows to 5 cm against Least Killifish at 2 cm, big enough to eat it.
- Scarlet Badis Panda Cory grows to 5 cm against Scarlet Badis at 2 cm, big enough to eat it.
- Common Goldfish Common Goldfish is not safe with Panda Cory: common goldfish and corydoras catfish are a bad pairing.
Only with care8
- Chinese Algae Eater Chinese Algae Eater is aggressive and Panda Cory is peaceful.
- Clown Loach Clown Loach is a risk to Panda Cory: corydoras catfish and loaches and botia are a pairing to watch.
- Dwarf Chain Loach Dwarf Chain Loach is a risk to Panda Cory: corydoras catfish and loaches and botia are a pairing to watch.
- Hillstream Loach Panda Cory and Hillstream Loach are an uneasy mix: corydoras catfish and loaches and botia are a pairing to watch.
- Kuhli Loach Kuhli Loach is a risk to Panda Cory: corydoras catfish and loaches and botia are a pairing to watch.
No conflict is recorded with the other 88 species in the database, so nothing to flag. 2 species are not covered at all, so they could not be judged either way.