Advice Please

[Gilli]

Hello fellow fish fanatics ! Fairly new to the hobby so advice on the following needed please!

I have 2 x panda corys. should anything nasty break out in my tank and need meds are there things I should be wary of putting in? I've read up that these do not have scales and are sensitive and I dont want to treat with any medication that may hurt them!! (dont want to rely on LFS here as sometimes they are worse than useless and rather than say they dont know sell you anything!)

Second question

I have a dwarf male gourami who I adore ( called Mr Banana because he loves them!) who ive had for 2 months now and is happily living with zebra danios, rams, guppies, platy, & panda corys . I was thinking of adding a female (or possibly another male) but I dont want to do that if they are likely to fight, or if a male and female pair up are likely to get aggressive towards other tank mates. Advice please?

 

[rabbut]

Adding another male gurami will lead to fights, usualy to the death The male will also likely bully a single female. If you want to get more of these wonderful fish, you should get 2 females to avoid trouble. This will spread the males attentions, reducing stress on the females

Corries IME don't respond to any meds (i.e they don't heal when treated). I have never found any meds that have a negative effect on them otherwise, but I rarely need to treat any of my tanks containing corries. Hopefuly Wilder will come allong and answer this thread, as she is our resident disease expert

HTH to some extent
Rabbut

 

[ALEXF]

im not positive (i dont have any) but i also believe the corys are best in groups of at least 3 so you might want to add another one.

 

[OldMan47]

Cories are one of my favorites but only in large groups. They will be healthy enough at 2 or 3 but at 5 or 6 they will start to make their presence known throughout the tank. When they are secure in a larger group they will stop spending all their time at the bottom. Instead you will find them swimming all over the tank and playing in the filter flows.
As far as medication, I don't know about the "scaleless" statement. They have scales like most other fish but are a bit sensitive to some medications. Most medications will give you a dosing schedule for tanks that include "sensitive" species. In general that should be read as including cories.

 

[tim1]

Yeah, Cories are happier in larger groups. I myself had 2 at the start, and when I added some more they became more active.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup the cories will def be happier in a group

what you want to watch out for medication wise is anything to treat white spot, it can be deadly for most catfish, loaches and similar.

i like to keep a few medicines in so if something does crop up i can treat it straight away, what i keep in is

pimafix
melafix
strong anti bacterial med
king british ws3

those few things will cure most common problems so it's a good idea to keep some around just as you'd keep some aspirin and stuff at home to treat minor problems in your family.

 

[Gilli]

A big thank you to everyone who responded - most helpful!

 

[xdave523x]

Hi, I have 3 Banded Gourami 1 chinese alage eater and 1 red tailed shark living together peacfully in a 65 gallon. I was wondering if it would be wise to add 3-4 bala sharks.

 

[5teady_2012]

Im pretty sure when using meds in your tank when having corys etc, you have to half the dosage.

 

[ALEXF]

Im pretty sure when using meds in your tank when having corys etc, you have to half the dosage.

now that you say that, i believe i have read that as well. when ever a fish is sensitive to the meds you use 1/2 dosage.