By James Okafor
The panda cory most UK tanks get slightly wrong
You've seen them in every aquatics shop — little cream catfish with a black mask over the eyes and a dark patch at the tail, bustling along the bottom in a tight group. Panda corydoras (Corydoras panda) are one of the most popular bottom-dwellers in the UK hobby, and one of the most commonly mis-kept. Not because they're difficult — they're genuinely easy — but because three small details get skipped: the group size, the temperature, and the substrate.
I'm James, the aquascaper and planted-tank lead here at Tropical Fish Co. I plan layouts for a living, and panda cory are a fish I keep coming back to — they're small enough for a sensibly-sized planted tank, they're peaceful with everything reasonable, and a shoal of them working across open sand is one of the best things you can put on the floor of an aquarium. But every layout I build for them starts from the same three non-negotiables, because that's where keepers go wrong.
This page is the answer I'd give a customer who walks in and says "I want some panda cory — what do I actually need?" We'll cover the species honestly: where it comes from, how many to buy, the cooler water it wants, the sand it needs, the tank mates that suit it, and the real Corydoras panda stock we have in this week. No invented numbers — every care figure here is checked against FishBase, Seriously Fish and Practical Fishkeeping, all cited inline.
A panda cory (Corydoras panda) — the dark "panda" mask over the eye and the patch at the tail base are the classic ID. This is our SKU S042 stock. Photo: Tropical Fish Co.
Fun facts — the stuff most UK guides never mention
- It's technically not a Corydoras any more. A 2024 revision of the armoured-catfish family split the old, sprawling Corydoras genus, and the panda cory was reassigned to the genus Hoplisoma — so the strictly-current scientific name is Hoplisoma panda [4]. The hobby (and FishBase) still overwhelmingly uses Corydoras panda [1], which is why that's the name on our listings — but if you ever see "Hoplisoma" on a label, it's the same fish.
- The "panda" you think you know might be a different species. The lookalike long traded as the "Loreto panda" was formally described as a separate fish, Corydoras ortegai [5]. True Corydoras panda and the Loreto are easy to mix up — one reason we keep the scientific name on every listing.
- They come from genuinely cool water. Panda cory live in the Río Aquas Amarillas, a clear-water tributary of the Pachitea in Peru's Ucayali system, where temperatures can fall towards 19 °C [4]. That's why they want cooler tanks than most tropicals — it's not a quirk, it's their actual habitat [3].
- Those barbels are feeding organs, not decoration. Panda cory "taste" the substrate with the whisker-like barbels around the mouth to find food. It's exactly why sharp gravel is so damaging — abrasion erodes the barbels and the fish loses its primary way of feeding [6].
- A lot of UK panda cory are now tank-bred. The species breeds readily at home after a cool water change that imitates seasonal rain, depositing sticky eggs on glass and leaves [5]. That captive-breeding success is part of why panda cory are so widely and affordably available in Britain today.
Panda vs pygmy vs bronze/sterbai — which cory is right for you?
People often arrive wanting "a cory" without realising the genus spans tiny mid-water swimmers to chunky 7 cm classics with very different temperature needs. Here's how the panda sits against the three other cories UK keepers ask about most:
| Attribute | Panda cory (C. panda) | Pygmy cory (C. pygmaeus) | Bronze cory (C. aeneus) | Sterbai cory (C. sterbai) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult size | ≈ 5 cm | ≈ 2.5–3 cm | ≈ 6–7 cm | ≈ 6–7 cm |
| Pattern | Cream body, black eye + tail patches | Silver with a dark lateral line | Plain metallic bronze-green | Dark body, white-dotted, orange pectoral spines |
| Temperature | Cooler — 22–25 °C | 22–26 °C | Hardy 22–26 °C (cool-tolerant) | Warmer — up to 28 °C |
| Temperament | Peaceful shoaler | Peaceful, partly mid-water | Peaceful, very hardy | Peaceful, robust |
| Best for | Cooler community + planted tanks | Nano / small planted tanks | First-tank, forgiving | Warm tanks (e.g. with discus) |
The headline: if your tank runs warm — say you keep discus or a heavily-tropical community — the panda is the wrong cory and a sterbai is the right one. If you've a nano planted tank, look at the pygmy. The panda is the sweet spot for a standard, slightly-cooler community tank. Our dedicated corydoras buying guide compares the whole genus, and the pygmy cory listings suit the nano end.
Panda cory do best in soft to medium water (2–12 dGH) [5]. Most of South-East England — the Thames Water region — runs hard, because the supply passes through chalk and limestone [7]. The good news: tank-bred pandas are adaptable and cope with typical UK hardness as long as it's stable and you avoid extremes [5]. You don't need to chase soft water with chemicals — stability matters more than the exact number. Check your own area's hardness with your water company before tinkering.
How many to buy, and the tank to put them in
Six is the floor. Eight to ten is the target. Panda cory are shoaling animals — confident foraging, the little dashes to the surface for a gulp of air, the resting piles on the sand — all of that only happens in a real group [3]. Behavioural research on corydoras shows shoaling is how they manage stress and feed without hesitation; undersized groups sit hidden and feed poorly [2]. A lone panda, or a pair, is a fish that never really switches on.
For tank size, think floor area, not litres on a box. A group of six is comfortable in a 60 L tank with a roughly 60 × 30 cm footprint; Seriously Fish lists a 45 × 30 cm base as the minimum for a small group [3]. Go long and low rather than tall and narrow — a bottom-dweller uses the floor, not the height.
And the substrate is a hard rule, not a preference: soft, fine sand. Panda cory sift it through their barbels to feed, and sharp gravel erodes those barbels into infection and feeding failure [6]. Rinsed pool-filter sand or smooth play sand is perfect, looks superb in a planted layout, and is exactly what they'd be digging through in the wild.
It's the combination that does the damage. Three pandas is an under-grouped, stressed shoal; gravel slowly wrecks their feeding barbels; and a tank run at 27–28 °C for a cool-water fish quietly shortens their life [3]. Each fault is survivable alone — together they're why "easy" panda cory die early. Fix all three at once: six-plus fish, soft sand, and 22–25 °C.
Tank mates — peaceful, cool-tolerant, and out of their way
The best panda-cory companions share two traits: they're peaceful, and they're happy at the same slightly-cooler temperatures the cories need. Avoid large or boisterous fish, and avoid anything that competes aggressively for sinking food [3]. Beyond that, pandas are model community citizens — they use the floor and leave the rest of the tank alone.
Compatible companions, with the care guides to match:
- Corydoras care guide — a second cory species shoals happily alongside pandas, as long as each species has its own group of six. Pygmy cory for nano tanks, bronze for hardier setups.
- Otocinclus care guide — peaceful little algae-grazers that work the plants and glass while the pandas work the sand. Same gentle temperament, same need for a mature, stable tank.
- Water-chemistry guide — the one to read before you buy anything: it covers the soft-vs-hard, cycling and stability points that decide whether a community thrives or struggles.
- Catfish & plecos hub — the full range of peaceful bottom-dwellers if you want to build the floor of the tank out properly.
Up in the water column, small tetras and rasboras are the natural partners, and shrimp and nerite snails round out a peaceful invert-friendly floor.
The long-fin form of the panda cory (Corydoras panda) — same species, same care, with an extended dorsal and tail. This is our SKU 8447 stock. Photo: Tropical Fish Co.
Feeding — the bit of panda corydoras care most people under-think
A panda catfish will hoover up whatever drifts to the floor, which is exactly why so many end up underfed: leftovers aren't a diet. Faster mid-water fish strip flake before it sinks, and the cories quietly lose condition. The fix is deliberate, bottom-targeted feeding.
- Staple: good-quality sinking pellets or catfish wafers that actually reach the substrate [5].
- Variety: frozen or live bloodworm, daphnia and brine shrimp a few times a week — these also bring them into breeding condition [5].
- Timing: if your tetras or rasboras are stealing everything, feed after the lights dim so the cories get a clear run at the sand.
- The health check: a well-fed panda cory has a gently rounded belly and busy, active barbels. A sunken belly or sluggish, clamped fish is the early warning sign — review whether food is genuinely reaching the floor.
That's the whole of feeding: get sinking food to the bottom, mix it up, and watch the bellies. It's the part of panda corydoras care that's easiest to neglect and quickest to fix.
When your panda cory arrive — slow drip, dim lights
Panda cory ship well — their armoured body makes them hardier in transit than thin-bodied tetras — but, like all cories, they're sensitive to a sudden change in temperature or water chemistry on arrival. Our welfare-first protocol, tuned for this species:
- Receive into a quiet, dimly-lit room. Check the box and bag temperature against your tank before opening.
- Float the sealed bag for 20 minutes to equalise temperature — important for a cool-water fish that may have travelled warmer or colder than its tank.
- Drip-acclimate over ~45 minutes at 1–2 drops per second, so the soft, slightly-acidic water they prefer is reached gradually rather than in one shock [8].
- Net them into the tank — never pour the bag water in. Keeps transit water out of your display.
- Lights off for two hours, and don't feed for the first 24 hours. They'll be foraging across the sand by the next morning.
Every panda-cory order ships in oxygen-charged double bags with insulation, via a licensed live-animal courier, and our welfare rule in-shop is simple: we never send fewer than a small group, because solo cories arrive stressed and rarely recover. Six is the number we recommend for the reasons above.
Related reading
Keep planning your tank with the rest of our cory and community resources:
- Shop: the corydoras hub for every cory we stock, and the catfish & plecos hub for the wider bottom-dweller range.
- Learn: the full corydoras care guide for species-by-species husbandry and breeding, and the otocinclus care guide for a peaceful algae-grazing tank mate.
- Compare: our genus-wide corydoras buying guide puts the panda in context against every other cory, and the kuhli loach guide covers another peaceful, sand-loving bottom-dweller that suits the same kind of tank.
