Corydoras venezuelanus

This little catfish is originally from the northern coastal areas of South America. It is native to Venezuela and possibly Trinidad. It likes to browse the shallow, sandy river bottom for food particles. Occurs is loose schools. The waters can have strong flow and cooler temperatures. It may be the same as C. aeneus, which is widespread and common across South America.

If you have information about or footage of this fish in the wild, please reach out to us.

This Corydoras species has a nice bronze colour (it is closely related to the 'Bronze cory', C. aeneus). It is relatively easy to spawn, at least in autumn, when I succeeded. Feed well, create a strong current and conduct a water change with cooler water. This recreates rainfall, which gets them in the mood. Eggs are stuck to plants or glass and will be eaten or get moulded when left alone. If breeding is the goal, move the eggs to a separate container with tank water and a drop of fungicide. Fungicide is also fry-icide, so as soon as the eggs hatch, do a 90% water change again. The fry are really small and may not take powder yet. They seem to like to graze on soaked leaves (which should have been prepared weeks ago).

Once the fry are big enough to eat powders or graze on sinking tablets, they are fairly easy to raise. Growth rate is rather individual in this species. If differences become too large, perhaps better separate them - the bigger ones may take all the food.