What pets/animals do you currently have?

These are our pets:

- Dogs:
1 Great dane x Rhodesian ridgeback male
1 French bulldog male

- An aviary wich currently houses:
3.3.4 Zebra finch
1.1.0 Diamond dove
1.1.0 Gouldian finch
1.1.0 Double-barred finch
1.1.0 Star finch
1.1.0 Bourke's parrot
1.1.0 Chinese painted quail

The gouldian finches, star finches and two couples of zebra finches currently have eggs.

- A pond with some goldfish and other fish. Also some frogs but they are wild frogs.

- An aquarium with:
0.1 common musk turtle

We also used to have chickens, guinea pigs, rabbits, a hamster and an aquarium with tropical fish.

 

Currently two housecats, and a 55 gallon Amazon paludarium, and a garden pond with native fishes.

The paludarium has two corydoras catfish (different species), 9 neon tetras, 4 red eye tetras, 5 candycane tetras, a dwarf flag cichlid, and an Agassiz's dwarf cichlid. All these fish are from the Amazon basin. All the plants are live, but not necessarily from South America.

The garden pond has a bunch of western mosquitofish and sailfin mollies, and a few orangespotted sunfish and one dollar sunfish.

 

Corydoras need to live in large groups. Minimum 7 individuals of each species.

 

Yeah, when i first started keeping fish back in the mid 80s all the books I had said to keep them in pairs, and that always worked for me , with my cories staying healthy for several years. Recently I’ve seen the modern wisdom is to keep them in larger groups like you say, but I guess I’m inclined to keep doing what has always worked for me.

 

Back in those days some books also claimed that tortoises should be fed raw minced meat on a regular basis, that you could drill a hole into their carapax to chain them to a fence, that cats should drink raw cow milk ad libidum, that parrots should be kept alone and chained to branches and that puppies should be hit with a newspaper and forcibly pushed into their urine to house train them. 40 years later, most of us have realized that all of this might not be a good idea.
With few exceptions such as Corydoras acutus, most Corydoras species live in groups in the wild, sometimes numbering up to thousands of individuals. Since we, as responsible and rational keepers, should strive to imitate the in-situ conditions of the animals for their sakes as well as possible, I'd suggest to follow @Kakapo 's advice instead of stubbornly clinging to outdated husbandry ideas.

Sincerely yours,
a dedicated keeper and breeder of several Corydoras species for several decades (who has always kept them in groups)

 

It’s a wee bit histrionic to compare keeping just a few corys together to horrific things like drilling holes in turtle carapaces, and using such hyperbole lends less gravitas to your argument, not more. Current conventional wisdom is great, especially for beginners, but 35 years of experience and skill at observing small changes in fish behavior and health and make individual decisions rather than just be a slave to what the books say has value too. Many recent innovations in the hobby are the result of experienced hobbyists defying the conventional wisdom and experimenting. Nano tanks are one example, and still no one would ever recommend a beginner start with a tank that small, but even though they are farther from imitating the in-situ conditions of the animals than larger tanks, for expert keepers they work. I hate to get into a contentious interaction so early in my tenure on this site, which is why I tried to explain my experience in a neutral way, but when someone responds to that by saying I’m “stubbornly clinging to outdated” practices and comparing what I’m doing to mutilating tortoises, to avoid escalating incivility, I think it’s best to just end this interaction with the agreement that you’re going to do what you’ve found works best for you and your fish and I’m going to do what I’ve found works best for me and mine. Peace.

 

Yes, some of the examples I deliberately chose were drastic - to prove my point that what was once considered and written down as appropriate and right can now rightfully be considered inadequate, or just plain wrong. Your reply to Kakapo's rightful correction was not neutral, but rather condescending and conservative (i.e. "slave to [outdated] books") , just as your answer is now to mine. If this was not your initial intention, too bad.
In general, decades of experience mean little to nothing of benefit to the animal if the husbandry is inadequate and the keeper is unwilling to improve and extend upon outdated knowledge.
In my profession, I have to deal with such stubbornness(sic) on a regular basis (and that for years if not decades as well). Every time, it makes me feel sorry for the animals in question whose lives could improve if the people in question would rest less on their (alleged?) laurels, admit that improvement is possible (and needed) and act accordingly.
Another example that will probably not find your approval: if I kept you together on an island with just another harmless nonhuman creature, like, say, a single rabbit, and carter adequately to your nutrional and health needs, you could still live a long and healthy life. Yet as a social species, you'd probably find the company of the hyrax probably less socially fulfilling of your intraspecific needs than with another being of your species.
We know from observations both in situ and ex situ that most Corydoras species are social beings that live in larger groups. Therefore, there is little point in deliberately denying them this constellation.
Your tank appears to be fine, and there'd be plenty of room to accommodate more specimens of each Corydoras species.
"Agree to disagree" without ever attempting to learn from one other leads to anything but peace. Or improvement.

 

I'd like to point out that I didn't say anything about being a "slave to books", outdated of otherwise, to Kakapoo. The fact that you're misremembering that I did calls into question the objectivity of your interpretation of my reply to Kakapoo as condescending (it wasn't). I hope you'll accept my assurances that condescension was never my intent, certainly not in my response to him, and not in my response to you, either, as I do respect your experience and passion for corydoras.

Yes, in the wild, corydoras cats are found in shoals of hundreds, even thousands, as you said. Can we really know if a grouping of 6, or even 20 conspecific cories can provide anything even approaching the sense of security a shoal of thousands does? All we can do is observe the behavior, health, and longevity of fish in aquariums and draw conclusions about what works and what doesn't, which is exactly what experienced aquarists do. Yes, "consensus" develops in the hobby and/or changes over time, but since the husbandry of aquarium fishes is not a robust field for peer-reviewed professional research, we should take care not to become too dogmatic in our acceptance of this consensus.

One area where I have seen such unwarranted dogmatism is fishless cycling. Now make no mistake, even though I came of age in the hobby back when fish-in cycling was the norm, I have fully embraced fishless cycling. However, it gives me pause to see people so quickly condemn experienced aquarists who dare challenge the orthodoxy that fish-in cycling is outright animal abuse. Again, all we have to go on whether any fishkeeping practice is "right" or not is direct observation of fishes' behavior and health, and longterm observation of longevity. Through assidious testing and water changes, and careful selection of species, experienced aquarists can safely perform fish-in cycles. And there are arguments in favor of fish-in cycles that dogmatists are largely unaware of. Speaking from my experience designing biological treatment systems for waste stream treatment, hobbyist adherents of fishless cycling tend to oversell its benefits from a lack of understanding of the biological and biochemical principles. Especially when they espouse using inorganic ammonia as their nitrogen source, and not understanding that it takes more than nitrosomonas and nitrobacter to make a healthy microbial community for fish.

The long and short is that as hobbyists we should remember that most of our conventional ideas of best practices aren't based on as rigorous science as we might think, and so we should be cautious about becoming too dogmatic and judging as "wrong" experienced hobbyists who are having success with practices outside the current "norm."

Edit: I'm realizing we've probably hijacked this thread, and I feel bad about that, so if you wish to discuss this further, perhaps we could start a separate thread?

 

No misremembering from my side; you did use this phrase when replying to me:

Do you really, from your allegedly objective pov, think that it is not condescending to allude that your dialogue partner is a slave (to whomever) ? No matter whether you use it against Kakapo or me?

It's at least better than zero conspecifics, like in your case. Once again: we know that Corydoras usually live in shoals in the wild. The numbers of this shoals can be hundreds or thousands, but also anything below that. But usually more than zero...
I've heard this reasoning of yours so many times when it comes to social species, although you're first when it comes to Corydoras catfish. One of the major argument brought forward in the other cases (parrots, primates etc. ..), i.e. risk of intraspecific aggression/stress, does not even apply to these peaceful fish.
As for fish cycling: sorry, but that is of little to no interest to this discussion. And could be interpreted as the badly masked attempt to paint me as dogmatic. Or wrong.

Then you should live up to that as well.
This

and the following replies do not convey an honest impression of an open mind, but rather the conservative opposite. The aspect that your vision of a solitary Corydoras husbandry is not shared by the vast majority of dedicated owners and breeders of these fish might not be an indicator of a free, out of the box thinking mind, as you apparently assume, but rather an indication that you're on the wrong track here.
As for thread hijacking - nobody forced you to reply, as you did.
Given the exchange of opinion so far, that new thread would probably just be a lengthy version of a pot calling a kettle black and vice versa.

 

Please

Do we have to turn this thread into a petty argument into who's right and who's wrong, i'm serious your both behaving like two crabs in a bucket sabotaging the others escape attempt.

Also @Batto open minded is not necessarily the willingness to change your thinking but it's the act of recognizing another point of view.

I'm pleading to both of you, this is getting out of hand.

 

You’ll have no more trouble from me, I’m out.

 

I didn't mean that you both couldn't have a discussion, what I was trying to say is that both you and batto were going a little too far, so it would be best to give you a reminder.

Thats okay though.

 

No you were right, it was a good reminder, I had already recognized that the discussion had become a distraction from the intent of this thread, so had decided not to continue it here,and I could take or leave discussing it in a new thread, and Batto said he’s not interested, so it’s over is all I meant by I’m out.

 

For me, being open-minded is not just limited to the acceptance of the existence of different opinions, but also includes the willingness to listen to them, learn and change my pov accordingly, if it makes sense.
Anyway, alea iacta est. I think we're done here.

 

My pets are

2 Maltese Terriers - Max and Annabelle
1 TortoiseShell Kitten - Luna
3 Goldfish - Lucky - Cosmo - Quicksilver
1 Budgie - Blue
1 Bearded Dragon - Bella
1 Wolf Spider - Nightcrawler
1 Black House Spider - Venom
1 Centipede- Charlie

 

Woah, that's a lot! How do you keep on top of maintenance for all that?

 

@DaLilFishie
Most of the time my parents feed them and care for them especially when I’m at school, and I catch flies and ants for Venom and use some of Bella’s Crickets for Nightcrawler and I might start catching baby wolf spiders for Charlie and Nightcrawler. Annabelle is my aunt and uncles dog and they live on the property with us. I only got Luna, the fish and the arachnids + centipede recently and have owned Max, Bella and Blue for a couple of years.

Any more questions?

Ps: sorry for arguing with you about fish tanks and the care of them
And I followed you (on Zoochat of course!)

 

I have a cat - my third total, in fact. His name is Smudge, he's a white-and-black moggy and he's around 18 years old.

 

The ambassador collection has reached its current vision of idealism. All of the animals that can't be used in programs (besides my axolotl, he's allowed to mooch) have been rehomed. The remaining animals are all being trained to become educational ambassadors for their species. I'm hoping that presentations can start up again soon.

Current Inventory
1.0 African Pygmy Hedgehog
1.0 Domestic Rabbit

0.0.1 Correlophus sarasinorum
1.0 Gargoyle Gecko
0.1 Leopard Gecko
0.0.1 Northern BlueTongye Skink

1.0 Axolotl
0.1 Eastern American Toad

X.X Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches


I recently ordered two small enclosures; One will be housing an Emperor Scorpion and the other a Vinegaroon. I also ordered an expansion for one of my enclosures. I'm planning on acquiring two chinchillas that have retired from a breeding facility near me, allowing them to live out the rest of their lives as educational ambassadors. (Until they're old enough to retire from those as well.)

 

I have 8 budgies (4 are this year's young, from 2 different successive clutches).
2 Masked Lovebirds which I took on from someone disposing of them.
3 Fancy Mice
7 Cory Catfish
6 Neon Tetra
6 Black Neon Tetra

I have previously kept cats, fancy rats, goldfish, hamsters, other tropical fish, dogs, a horse, rabbits, a terrapin, praying mantis, pigeons and many species of stick insect.