Cory With Most Of Mouth Missing - Advice Please

[fishyfishface]

Hi everyone,

My cory lost his barbels and some of the bottom bit of his mouth so I medicated the aquarium with baktopur. I did 4 doses with all the correct water changes to ensure the aquarium was cured as some of my guppies had died. This all happened a few of weeks ago. A few days ago I replaced the gravel with sand as I suspect it was the gravel that originally damaged his mouth and led to an infection and bought another cory to keep him company. They are not socialising at all.

I thought the cory was better but now it seems that even more of his flesh is missing and now his face is completely flat at the front with a gaping hole for a mouth. He seems to be having problems eating and just blows up the sand in his face and then kind of rolls in it and darts around.

I'm wondering what I should do. He's lost so much of his mouth that I can't imagine it could possibly grow back. Should I medicate the tank again? (none of the other fish seem to be having any problems - 2 platys and 2 guppies), should I leave him alone or should I consider euthanising him if he can't eat properly.


Thanks

 

[Liam]

It looks pretty bad, if the fish cannot eat then the only humane thing to do is to put it down rather than have it starve to death.

 

[furry catfish]

Yea liams right without its barbels it wont find any food

 

[superman1]

omg i had the exact same problem about a week ago. my albino cory had his barbels missing...

i currently have sand in my tank and thought that was weird so kept an eye out. i noticed he had a random hole underneath his body which seemed like he was breathing out of as when he went up for air he had to get that part of the body out of the water.. his barbels dissapeared and more of his mouth was lost. eventually he passed away. although all my other 5 remaining corys were fine.

never found out what the problem was.

 

[mark1979]

i posted almost the same problem as this with my panda cory,in the emergencie section!!

mine lost all barbels and found it hard to get food,what i did was soak some pellets and try to get him just to have them. This did work but a week or so after he died

once this happened i removed all my gravel and got smaller stuff,as i thought maybe the gravel contributed to the loss in the barbels

do you have sharp substrate?