Size the Tank for the Shoal, Not the Single Fish
A panda corydoras barely reaches two inches, which tempts people toward a small tank, but the species is never meant to live alone. A proper group starts at six fish and looks and behaves far better at eight to ten, and housing that group well takes a twenty-gallon long aquarium. The long format matters more than the raw gallon count: pandas spend nearly all their time on the bottom, so floor area is their living space, while height above them is mostly wasted. A tall twenty-gallon with a small base serves them worse than the low, wide long tank.
Life on the Bottom, in Company
Pandas are social catfish that rest touching each other, forage in loose formation, and startle as one when a shadow passes. Alone or in a pair, the same fish hides behind plants and barely moves, which owners often misread as the species being dull. Their black eye patch, dark tail-base patch, and pale body make a settled shoal easy to read: fish spread across the sand, whiskers working, are comfortable, while a group permanently wedged under one ornament is telling you the tank feels exposed. Add smooth caves, broad plant leaves, and wood so the bottom offers broken sight lines without trapping the group in one corner.
Sand Is a Health Requirement, Not a Style Choice
Each panda searches the substrate with three pairs of sensitive barbels — the whiskers around its mouth — and coarse, sharp gravel wears those barbels down, opening the way to infection. Smooth sand is the right floor: the fish can push their snouts into it, sift mouthfuls, and blow it out through their gills exactly as they would on a riverbed. If part of the tank already has fine rounded gravel, feed the shoal over a cleared sandy patch and watch barbel length at every water change; shortening or reddened barbels are an early, fixable warning that the floor is wrong.
Fitting Pandas Into a Community Tank
A twenty-gallon long also gives tank mates vertical room to leave the pandas their floor: small tetras, rasboras, or a honey gourami above, with the corydoras owning the bottom. Avoid large or pushy bottom dwellers that will outcompete them at feeding time, because pandas are polite, slow grazers who lose out quietly. Feed them directly — sinking pellets or wafers dropped near the shoal after lights dim, plus occasional frozen foods — rather than assuming falling flakes will reach them in enough quantity.
Settling a New Shoal
New pandas often dash to the surface for gulps of air; corydoras can absorb oxygen through the gut, and occasional trips are normal, but constant surface traffic across the whole group points to low oxygen or poor water and deserves a test and a partial change the same day. Keep up weekly water changes, vacuum the sand surface gently without deep-stirring it all at once, and quarantine new arrivals where possible, since pandas are sensitive to rough handling and sudden chemistry changes. When several people share feeding and vacuuming, a shared log stops the double dinners that foul a bottom layer fast, and KinsLe Family Sharing keeps the shoal's profile and care routine visible to the whole family.