Listed as Black Venezuela or Venezuelan Black, usually under the name Corydoras schultzei, and it runs pricier than common corys. Aquatic Arts notes it is not commercially bred at anything like the volume of the everyday Corydoras species. The body is near black with a dark maroon cast, and like other corys it pales over a bright bare bottom and holds color over dark substrate.
In the wild
A line-bred black form rather than a wild fish, despite the country in the trade name. The Fishkeeper species page records that a German aquarist first produced the black strain in the early 1990s and then sent it on to fish breeders in the Czech Republic, where it has been bred commercially in large numbers ever since. Aquatic Arts tells the same story of German aquarists line-breeding it in the 1990s, and adds that the fish is indigenous to Peru, not Venezuela.
Good to know
The black is dense dark pigment over the whole body in place of the gold and bronze of the parent form, and it is the product of line breeding rather than a documented single mutation. The parent is Osteogaster schultzei, a member of the bronze cory group that was recently split out of Corydoras. Aquatic Arts describes the fish as a color variant of the gold flash cory, which is that same species under its trade name.
Did you know
The name is wrong twice over. The fish has no Venezuelan origins, and it is not a form of the actual Venezuelan cory either: Fishkeeper points out that many suppliers still list it as Corydoras venezuelanus black, which it is not.
Weekly picks
Tank mates
Venezuela black cory is a peaceful, shoaling species that keeps to the bottom. These picks share a community profile with it, are safe together in both directions, and overlap on water type, temperature and pH.
2.6 in (6.5 cm)21 gal (80 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)
2.4 in (6 cm)17 gal (65 L)68–73°F (20–23°C)
2.4 in (6 cm)20 gal (75 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)
2.4 in (6 cm)20 gal (75 L)68–79°F (20–26°C)
2 in (5 cm)16 gal (60 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)
1.6 in (4 cm)15 gal (55 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)