Corydora with red gills and dull colour

[CrystalStars]

Hello, again.

I've been having horrible luck with my fish. Lost all my otos, had 10 cories now down to 4, had 2 whiptails now I have 1.

The whiptail was most likely an accidental death from shipping. Its tail was kinked and it didn't recover. The other one is eating and growing big. My problem is the cories.

Most of the cories that died would show red gills, their colour would dull and they would barrelroll in the sand as if they had an itch. Here is one right now suffering from it:

My camera doesn't pick it up well but that lighter one's gills are quite red. I thought it might've been flukes so I quarantined them recently and treated them with paracleanse, then use methlyne blue. When things seemed fine I put them back I into the tank. But this one's gills turned red and it lost its colour.

My parameters are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate. Ph 7.8. Temp is 79. Harness is 120.

I do weekly 25% water changes. I still have cynobacteria that im slowly dealing with. Its not as bad as it used to be but it's still present.

No new fish has been added and I'm not getting anymore until I figure out what's going on. Any help would be much appreciated. I have lost so many fish and it's been extremely disheartening.

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

Hello sorry to hear you're struggling. May I ask please how you're testing? If you've got cyanobacteria I'd imagine that there must be some nitrate?

 

[CrystalStars]

Thank you for the concern. I use the API master test kit. Put 10 drops of solution 1 in the test tube, shake for 5 seconds. Shake solution 2 vigorously for 30 seconds. Add it to test tube, then shake for 1 minute. The tank was cycled. I went through the process well enough. Plants are doing great.

 

[Byron]

The GH at 120 I assume is in ppm (= mg/l). This equates to just under 7 dH. This is not bad for these fish. BTW, the species is Corydoras trilineatus. These will be wild caught. [They were likely sold as C. julii, but they are C. trilineatus.]

The temperature is much too warm for cories, they are best around 23-25 C/73-77F and no warmer. Depending what is the issue, heat for a treatment of one or two weeks (as for ich) is tolerated by this fish, but on a long-term basis it needs cooler water. Don't worry about summer heat waves either, they are temporary (well, hopefully) or you can use air conditioning, depending where you live.

Flukes was a possibility, another is ich even without external spots. Something in the water. What do they add to your water? Are you adding any substances at all? What conditioner?

The cyanobacteria is a sign of an underlying problem with organics and light. Nitrates may be high, but mine never went up in the one tank I had cyano in twice. But you need to do a good clean of the substrate (sand, so stir it up and siphon out any floating stuff). Keep the filter spotless. Change more water, at least 50%, up to 70% once a week (at one go). Floating plants are good, both for this and the fish themselves.

They are over sand so not a problem of bacteria from gravel. Is there a plant substrate or whatever under the sand? These can cause bacterial issues especially for substrate fish.

What are you feeding them?

 

[Colin_T]

I'm assuming the sand was play sand and washed well before adding it to the tank?

Bright red gills is normally caused by poor water quality, gill flukes or poisoning.

Too many bottom dwellers have been affected for it to be gill flukes.

Your water appears fine and the fact other fish besides bottom dwellers haven't died, would suggest poisoning from the substrate or something on, in or under the substrate. It is probably the blue green algae (Cyanobacter bacteria). In small amounts it's not an issue but the fact all the fish that died are bottom dwellers, and you have a Cyanobacteria problem, would point to this being the cause of death.

Do bigger (75%) water changes and gravel clean the sand every day for a week or two. Then do a 75% water change and gravel clean once a week after the Cyanobacteria has gone.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Reduce the dry food going into the tank because Cyanobacteria love this type of food.

Increase water movement around the bottom of the tank and increase aeration/ surface turbulence to maximise the oxygen in the water.

Make sure any buckets and equipment for the aquariums is only used for the aquariums.

Make sure you don't have any perfume, grease, moisturising cream, hand sanitiser residue or anything else on your hands that can wash off into the tank.

Make sure nobody is spraying anything in the room or near the room with the aquarium. Make sure no fumes from cooking or air fresheners are used nearby.

 

[CrystalStars]

@Byron

Spoiler

Yes, the GH is in ppm. And yes, Petsmart sells these fish as C. julii, which I know is not correct. But I love the C. trilineatus a lot. Their connected spots are really cute. Petsmart was the only way I could get fish and I thought I could trust mine since the tanks were clean and they recently hired people who know fish... but I'm probably not going to trust them anymore. Unfortunately, there are no breeders around my area. But I found a really good family owned fish store where I got my whiptails (rineloricaria sp.) from. The one did die, but I don't blame the providers. FedEx were a day late with their shipment and one of the whiptails arrived injured and just never recovered.

OK, I lowered the temp just a smidge last night. I didn't realize it was too hot for these guys.

My city's water comes directly from the river. Main chemical they use is chlorine. I do treat the water with conditioner. I add plant fertilizer once a week. And since I don't have the money or room to hook up a CO2 system, I add half a cap of Excel every day.

I've been scrubbing everything on my maintenance day every week. But I'll try to do a larger water change and really scrub the filter. Colin_T mentioned doing a massive change and cleaning the substrate every day, so I'll also do that. It won't harm the BB in there, will it? I've been looking at floating plants anyways. I feel the top of my tank looks bare and I think some floating plants will look really nice.

I only added sand. I thought it would be fine for my plants. At first they were dying until I added root tabs. Now they're flourishing.

I was feeding them Vibra Bites and Omega Catfish pellets. Sometimes add blanched bell peppers and peas. But that was mostly for the whiptails, they loved them. I recall you mentioning bugbites would be better, so I might switch to that. I've been considering switching to frozen thawed food, too.

@Colin_T

Spoiler

The sand is Caribsea White Sand, and yes. I washed it before adding to the tank.

The only fish I have are bottom dwellers. But I don't think the otos died to the same thing as the cories. I did treat these fish with paracleanse and methylene blue, so I really don't think it can be flukes. I added them back into the tank last week, and the one cory is already showing red gills and dull colours. It was not like that while in quarantine. So, you're probably right that it could be something in my substrate.

OK, I'll try the 75% water change and clean the sand every day. Is there an effective way to clean the sand without sucking it all into the siphon? I tried waving the siphon back and forth above the sand, but the cyano doesn't come loose to be the only thing sucked into the siphon.

As mentioned with Byron, I may switch to frozen thawed food.

I'll fix up my aeration when I get home tonight. By the way, I'm using a HOB filter. Is that fine? Or should I invest in a sponge filter?

Yep, all my buckets are used only for tank maintenance. My hands are washed thoroughly before I do any maintenance to make sure I don't have soup or cream on them to contaminate with water with harmful chemicals. I don't spray perfume or fresheners around the tank. And the tank is not near where I cook.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I am curious as to where you got the gorys/ Did you have then shipped in? If not, how long were they in the bags between the time you bought them and the time they went into your tank?

I am asking this because some corys will self-poison in bags. I know that sterbai do this and I know the researcher who did the work to show how this happens. I have seen this in action when buying certain corys that I had shipped to me. What you describe is exactly what one sees if they receive corys which have self poisoned in transit.

However, when corys do self poison they normally can arrive in bad shape and die not very long after they arrive. They show redness near the gills and elsewhere, They get sluggish, and then die. Fortunately, for those who know they are dealing with species that can self poison, there is a method to prevent it. it is called "kick the bucket."

Before bagging the corys they are put into a bucket of clean water. Then one give the bucket a couple of kick to upset the corys which should induce them to emit the toxin that can cause self poisoning. This process is repeated once or twice more (I do it 3 times) and the water in the bucket gets changed between kickings. Then the corys are bagged in clean water. In the wild this release of the toxin is a defense mechanism. A bit of the toxin gets released and puts off an attacker long enough for the cory to make a dash to safety. In the wild the toxin gets diluted pretty fast and is not an issue. But, in a bag it become nasty and will harm/kill the fish.

So, it would help to investigate whether the trilineatus is one of the species which emits the toxin of not. That could go a long way to explaining what you are seeing. I will shoot the researcher a PM and ask him if he knows if your corys are a species which might self poison. I will post the answer when I get it.

edited to add the following:
I headed over to planetcatfish to PM the pro. For some reason it kept giving me error messages when I tried to send it. So I copied it and emailed it to him at his University email. I just got an automated reply back which said he is out of the office until Aug 7. and will reply when he returns.

 

[Colin_T]

How many live plants do you have?
Can you post a picture of the entire tank so we can see the plants?

Stop adding excel

Stop adding all fertiliser until the Cyanobacteria has gone.

If you add an aquarium plant fertiliser each week but aren't checking iron and other levels, then do a big (75%) water change before adding more fertiliser. If the plants don't use all the fertiliser and you do a small (25%) water change before re-dosing the tank, the fertiliser can build up and poison the fish. It will also feed the Cyanobacteria. A big water change before adding more fertiliser helps to dilute any remaining nutrients and reduces the chance of fertiliser build up in the water.

---------------------

Big water changes do not affect the beneficial filter bacteria as long as the new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank. The good bacteria live in the filter media/ materials and on hard surfaces (gravel, ornaments, rocks, plants, etc). The microscopic organisms that live in the water are usually harmful pathogens like protozoa.

A HOB (hang on back) style of filter is fine.

I use a gravel cleaner and kink the syphon hose a bit when doing sand. It allows me to clean the sand without sucking it all out.

If the fish were looking better in the quarantine tank, then you can move them all into that tank and flush out the main tank to help get rid of the Cyanobacteria.

This stuff can also kill Cyanobacteria, but unless you resolve the cause, it will come back. I would say the fertiliser and dry food are possible causes.

Amazon.com

 

[CrystalStars]

@TwoTankAmin
I've heard about this. I don't think it's self poison. I got mine from Petsmart, went home and immediately started acclimating them because I heard cories might do this. Besides, they lasted for weeks in the quarantine tank. Doing just fine. Once they were added to the main tank they started dying.

@Colin_T

Don't mind the tacky food dish. I couldn't get the cories to figure out where I was putting food, so I put that in and it helped a lot. I have 5 plant species in here. Hygrophila corymbosa 'Stricta', raxiphyllym barbieri, echinodorys 'green chameleon', microsorum pteropus 'trident', and an unknown species. The provider sent me an extra plant by accident and didnt put a label on it. It's the ones on the right hand side with the big leaves. I'm also iffy about the "echinodorys green chameleon". They're beside the food dish. I have looked at pictures and they don't look like that. Unless they're just tiny because I don't have CO2 set up.

Update on the fish in the pictures above... it died. I added the remaining fish back to the quarantine tank while I deal with the main tank.

I'm going to start the daily water changes and cleaning today. I'll keep you all updated.

I really appreciate you all for the advice and being patient with me. As mentioned before, this has been really hard. I don't want to quit because I really do enjoy keeping fish. It's just this has been extremely difficult.

For anyone curious, these guys are the last of my collection. I love them a lot and I really want to improve their quality of life.