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s can be seen in the photograph this is a male due to the longer dorsal fin against the normal of the female. This cory is somewhat similar to Osteogaster aenea (formerly Corydoras aeneus), but there the similarity ends, as concolor is smaller and a more robust looking fish, it appears to be more chunky, especially fully grown adults which can get very heavy and impressive looking.

Hoplisoma concolor

I first acquired four of this species from a friend in 1994 as he was having difficulty with them keeping their barbels, probably due to bacteria in the gravel, as catfish, especially Corydoras/Hoplisoma, are the first to suffer from adverse conditions in the substrate. I kept them on a sand substrate in my cory community tank up to the beginning of 1996 and they began to slowly grow back their barbels. I then decided to set them up for spawning as I had, lucky enough, two pairs as the males are somewhat smaller and have an elongated dorsal fin and the females can get quite heavy.

Both sexes have a nice orange colouration to their fins with some species having more colour than others, probably depending on the catchment area. The Latin meaning for concolor is uniformly coloured; of the same colour. but I find this a bit of a misdemeanor as they can show traces of blues and greens in a healthy specimen and also the colour in the fins as mentioned earlier.

I find them to be quite an easy Corydoras/Hoplisoma to keep but somewhat shy, I sometimes wonder why they are not more popular, but in the U.K anyway, they are not so abundant in the aquatic shops.

I did have quite a bit of success in spawning this species and I have a short summery in the breeding section of this factsheet. Below is a small photo album of the breeding of Hoplisoma concolor, just click on the thumbnail to see a larger image.

	Picture of H. concolor eggs at 2mm
	Juveniles grubbing about for food
	Male with fry

If you are keen on Corydoras/Hoplisoma and you see concolor in your local shop, give them a go, you will not be disappointed. Buy at least 4 and more if you can afford it as they are not all that expensive, although they will cost more than your average cory such as aenea, paleatum etc.

Slate Cory

Corydoras esperanzae, Corydoras concolor

Corydoradinae

South America: Venezuela, Las Mangas, in a tributary to the Río Parguaza, western part of the State of Bolivar,  Venezuela. The Río  Parguaza is a stream arising in the Serranía de Parguaza, flowing northwest and  into the Río Orinoco almost opposite  the island of El Gallo (6°20’N, 67°10’W.

Male: 5.5cm (2¼ins) Female: 6.0cm (2½ins)

23-26°C (73-79°F)

Dorsal 1/7; Anal 1/5; Head short and compact.

Will do well in a community setup with smaller tankmates such as Rasboras and Tetra's. Do not house with aggressive species or large Cichlids.

I set them up for breeding in a 18" x 12" x 12" tank with sand, Java moss, Java fern and a sponge filter. They spawned with the temperature of their water at 78°f and a pH of 6 and GH 1. The eggs are quite large measuring 2mm and a creamy white colour. My first spawning yielded only 8 eggs but my second spawning 7 weeks later amounted to 25 eggs. They laid eggs on and off for the next year then suddenly stopped for a year. I didn't get them going again until the night of this article (14th Sept.98) The fry look like any other cory fry having spots over the top half of the body and gradually begin to look like the parents after 6 weeks with pale orange fins, a dark head which has quite a steep incline, making it look quite chunky.

The usual fare for adult Corydoras/Hoplisoma, a good quality flake food, tablet food, frozen bloodworm and whiteworm used sparingly. I fed the fry with infusuria to start off the first few days then on to Brine shrimp naupli, Microworm, fry and crushed flake.

Hoplisoma: hóplon, shield or armor; soma, body, referring to bony plates on sides.
concolor: Uniformly coloured; of the same colour.

Alexandrou, Markos & Taylor, Martin (2011). Evolution, ecology and taxonomy of the Corydoradinae revisited.
Angelica C Dias, Luiz F C Tencatt, Fabio F Roxo, Gabriel de Souza da Costa Silva, Sérgio A Santos, Marcelo R Britto, Martin I Taylor, Claudio Oliveira, Phylogenomic analyses in the complex Neotropical subfamily Corydoradinae (Siluriformes: Callichthyidae) with a new classification based on morphological and molecular data, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2024;, zlae053.
Fuller, I.A.M. & Evers, H-G: 2005 Identifying Corydoradinae Catfish 384 p.
Fuller, I.A.M, Breeding Corydoradine Catfishes. First Edition. 2001. Ian Fuller Enterprises, Kidderminster, England.

Photo Credits

Top: © Graham Ramsay
Bottom three: © Allan James @