Baby corydoras, called fry, begin life at the bottom of the tank and feed there from the start. They are small, their mouths are smaller, and they spend their early days sheltering among plants and cover rather than ranging openly, so feeding them is mostly a delivery problem: food tiny enough to eat, soft enough to manage, and placed where the fry actually live. Food sprinkled on the surface for adult fish passes baby corydoras by entirely. A household that feeds them deliberately, in small amounts and often, usually finds the fry grow steadily and begin to show the whiskered, bottom-shuffling behavior of their parents within weeks.
The Foods: Crushed, Powdered, and Tiny
Crushed sinking foods form the base of the diet. Take a sinking food made for bottom feeders and crush it to a coarse powder between finger and thumb, so fragments fall to the substrate in sizes a fry can mouth and worry at. Powdered fry food, made fine for first feeding, fills the earliest days when even crushed fragments are too large, and it can be dusted over the sheltered areas where fry gather. Tiny live or frozen foods complete the set: newly hatched brine shrimp, microworms, and similar small foods, thawed if frozen and rinsed before use, give fry protein-rich meals that trigger eager feeding, because movement at the bottom draws fry out of cover. Offer a mix across the day rather than one food only; variety covers nutritional gaps that any single food leaves, and watching which foods the fry take eagerly helps the household settle the rotation that works in its own tank. Keep portions small enough that the bottom is clean again within a short while, because uneaten fine food decays fast in warm water.
Target the food rather than broadcasting it. A pipette or a smooth squeeze bottle lets a keeper place a small cloud of powdered or crushed food directly over the plants and driftwood where fry are sheltering, instead of dusting the whole tank and fouling open water. Release a little at a time and pause between releases, so fry can work through what has landed before more arrives. Fry that come out to meet the food are showing the keeper the shelter spots worth aiming at the next day, which makes each feeding slightly more accurate than the last.
Reaching the Bottom, Several Times a Day
Fed several times a day in small amounts, fry grow more evenly than fry fed once and heavily, because tiny stomachs empty quickly and a missed meal at this size is a real setback. Deliver food to the bottom deliberately: soak powdered and crushed food briefly so it sinks instead of drifting, release it low over the plants and cover where the fry shelter, and turn off strong flow for a short while if the current carries food away before it lands. The household feeding roster is shared through KinsLe's Family Sharing, with the day's several feedings listed by time and food type and each feeding ticked off by whoever gave it, so a fry tank kept by a busy household does not depend on one person remembering whether the midday round happened. That same shared note is where uneaten food, cloudy water, or fry that stop feeding get recorded, because water quality and appetite are the two early warnings in a fry tank. Siphon the bottom gently during water changes to lift waste without lifting fry, and check the siphon bucket before discarding it, since fry are drawn in more easily than they are noticed. Who fed last is visible in the Family Sharing note on KinsLe, helping the household space meals evenly without doubling a round by mistake.