# Pygmy cory cats in a 5 gal?



## elijahfeathers

Soooo if you can have 6 of them in a 10 gallon with a betta... would 3-4 be adiquite in a rather densely planted, filtered 5 gallon? I have a few shrimp currently but they don't seem like they'll be lasting as Aden sees them as food... lol. A small school of those would look neat though I thought. I'm looking for any feedback. I'm willing to up water changes within reason to make it work (within reason meaning not like 75% every day or something).

The tank's been established for a couple months, however I don't own a liquid test kit so I can't say if it's cycled or not. I do a 50% wc every week currently. It houses 1 betta at the moment, and some remainder of five shrimp. xD


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## elijahfeathers

This is the tank btw


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## GreenTea

I'd say no, just because even though they _might_ be ok bioload wise, it's not a lot of room for them to dart and swim around in. I'd just let your betta have the run of the tank


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## elijahfeathers

I was wondering about that too. However the pygmies don't really get over an inch long apparently. If it doesn't work out for the 5 gallon it's alright, I'll just put a spectacular amount of ghost shrimp in as they seem to make my fish very happy and very full. I know I haven't updated my siggy, but Zariel died and I found a home for Scrappy whom I rescused. I've been thinking about rehoming one of the two left in the 10 gallon and try for making a community in that. that involved a betta. That would take some investment though to plant more heavily, and finding good, new homes for fish is difficult.


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## GreenTea

Yeah the pygmies stay small, but still don't think they'd be happy in a 5 gallon tank. And yeah re-homing fish is hard, but kind of fun in a way, when you know they're going to good homes!


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## elijahfeathers

Well, I'm going to look for more info. Several sites said it was generally okay... however those were nano tank people. I'm eager for any input from anyone who's owned them and can tell me about their level of activity.


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## GreenTea

They are extremely active, pretty much always moving. What sites said it was ok? What are the dimensions of your tank btw?


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## elijahfeathers

Mine is a standard 5 gallon I don't know the exact dimensions, but it's the regular boring old rectangle shape.


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## elijahfeathers

searching "5 gallon pygmy cories" yields mostly suggestions that it's alright, including wikipidia.


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## SmokeNLark

Hmm, my first instinct was to say no, that it was too small, but looking it up a bit seem to say it's ok. I looked on the sister site, tropicalfishkeeping.com. 
http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/profiles/pygmy-cory/
That's the fish profile. "small group in a 5 gallon", I'd probably get 4. As long as you keep up with changes, I see no reason not too. And now I want to find some for my 5 gallon. haha


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## Micho

First of, I would say no!

I have pygmy cories, and I have to say I'm taking bad care of them right now, simply due to the fact that I only have two right now and I prefer to be in a minimum shoal of six recommended ten and above. I'm a bad fish daddy I know. D: 

They're fast swimmers, faster than any fish I've owned before they dart around like little monkeys to be honest, they're cute fish. I wouldn't trust Wikipedia since, well it's Wikipedia! Now seriouslyfish recommends a minimum of 42.5 litres which is roughly around 11 gallons. 

So once again, no I would not recommend pygmy cories in such a small tank, 10 gallons is the minimum for them.


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## elijahfeathers

Yeah, still looking for more feedback. I'm thinking at this point that I might try to get them, and if it proves to be cramped I'll move them to my 10 gallon. It's divided... but one betta can have 2/3rds of the tank with little cories if it doesn't work out.


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## Micho

In your ten gallon community they'll do fine, pygmy cories are fast swimmers so they'll most definitely outswim your Betta. I rather put them in the ten gallon first, to be honest five gallon is a bit cramped you'll know this if they just stay in the bottom all of the time. 

Pygmy cories need to breathe through their labyrinth organ too, they'll swim middle-lowish level of the tank.


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## elijahfeathers

Well, several sites are saying 5 gals is the min for a small school. My thing is my 5 gallon is pretty decently planted. It's also only a little smaller as far as the footprint goes (not a hex, lol), and I understand that cories like to stick to the bottom of the tank?

10g dimensions; 20L x 11W x 13H
5g dimensions; 17L x 9W x 11H


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## elijahfeathers

lol. Well I guess reading up online I've sort of made up my mind. I have space as a backup, but I think I'm going to do 3-4 of those guys in my 5 gal with the betta. I personally feel it's planted enough and that it should be alright... and if it isn't, I'll simply move them to the 10 gallon their own partition, and when I start to work on that more I'll expand their school into a bigger number.


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## Micho

Why would you only do 3 or 4 of them? The minimum of a shoal for them is 6. These guys are tiny, I can't even find mine in my tank at times, grab 6 if you want Cories they do way better in shoals.


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## GreenTea

The footprint isn't the issue...It's the space they have to swim and shoal. They only have bout 8 inches front to back by 12 inches length wise to swim in a shoal and that is not much. If you have the space somewhere else like you've mentioned, I'd say put them there to begin with!


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## elijahfeathers

Huh. I read a couple places that 3-4 is the min but that 6-12 is ideal.

If I got cories in my 10 gal I'd want to go for a larger species. The pygmies are cute but... not very eye catching in a 10 gallon.


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## GreenTea

Yeah, 4 is sort of the bare minimum, 6 is the ideal starting number. You're going to do what you're going to do but that's my two cents.


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## elijahfeathers

Well researching says that they should be doable but meh. I'm looking more into that 4 min thing and seeing that it's not looking so hot.

I guess I'll amass an army of ghost shrimp (at least 10 lol) and an apple snail to entertain Aden.

And yeah to me it was looking mostly like a water quality issue at 3-4 min. But at 6 as a true min... not enough room in the 5 gallon.


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## Micho

Pygmy Cories don't show themselves that much unless they feel safe (dim lighting) and are in a shoal. The bigger the number the safer they feel, they can live in a 10g fine, you could plop 10 of them in. They'll hide for a few days but after awhile they'll show themselves, your Betta will stop trying to chase them after he finds them to be fast swimmers.

As for the 5g you could do 6 but that's pushing it, maybe you could have a shrimp farm in there? I always wanted one.


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## elijahfeathers

I like shrimp. My issue is that all my bettas like shrimp, too. I'll need to purchase quite a few and hope they're intelligent enough to use cover.

As opposed to you know. Swimming in circles until they get caught. -___-;


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## Bombalurina

Mine generally survive pretty well in the betta tanks - when they are worried about the betta, they stay under cover. They don't tend to emerge until they are confident they won't get eaten. When I first moved some of my RCS to my 5 gallon with my veiltail male, they were used to being in the open, but they realised Apollo was curious and hid themselves away. Now he's got over the fascination and they are out and about again.


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## Bombalurina

Shrimp, that is, not pygmy cories. I definitely wouldn't do the pygmies in less than a 10 gal.


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## elijahfeathers

I had four the other day when I bought the,m (at $3 each). Now only my jumbo ghost shrimp remain.. they're just too big for my fish to eat. I'll stick to ghosts I think as they'r pretty cheap xD


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