Of all the different species of Corydoras we’ve tried keeping in our two aquariums at home, we’ve had the most luck with the Leopard Corys. They’ve been terrifically robust, gregarious, and very social to the other inhabitants in the tank. These are actually pretty small critters, and the four we’ve got in our large living room aquarium each measure just under an inch.
We’ve been keeping our eye open to see if we can get new companions for these four from Sea View Aquarium for several weeks, but no luck. Until over the last weekend, we went by Lam Hong and saw the largest Corydoras yet in Singapore, and Sterbai Cories according to the species ! These babies were going for $6 (about four times more expensive than the normal ones), and they each measured more than 2.5 inches from head to fin! Sterbais look very much like Leopards, though closer examination of the pectoral fins will show a difference of colors.
I don’t think these large Cories were bred here in the local farms, since I’ve not seen them at the other aquariums here; my guess is that these are possibly the ones that have been caught in the wild. The very large specimens are commonly found in the rivers of Latin America, and while this huge fellow and the little ones are technically the same species, they’re certainly not from the same source.In any case, we picked up this fellow, alongside eight Neon Tetras to join the current shoal. You can get an idea of the comparative sizes in the picture above. As with other new critters we pick up, the bag floats in the tank for a while so that the water temperatures can equalize.
It’s pretty funny to see the big fellow swim around in the tank now. He’s so big he looks like he could gulp any one of our Neon Tetras. But he’s really a gentle giant; so much so that Ling is determined to name him “GG” for Gentle Giant. The other fellows in the tank aren’t intimidated by GG at all, even though he does tend to create quite a bit of water turbulence when he swims around.
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