First Loss

[corykitty516]

I lost my 3 new cories but I think there was something wrong with them to begin with. The LFS (who will replace any fish, no time limit, depending on water quality) was at first reluctant to replace but after testing my water gave me 3 new straight away. He started to make some speech about the rest of the cories in the tank and how they had been there for 3 months and were fine. Well we walked over to the tank and there was a dead one. I really like this LFS, and nothing I've gotten from here has ever been sick or died before. He suggested that I might try buffering the water closer to 7.0. I am so hesitant to fool around with pH like that though. Anyhow ... I borrowed a 5g from a friend to quarrinting them and they look like they are doing fine.

Water params
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10-20 ppm (within the "safe" range)
pH 6.8 (it comes from the tap this way... I dont have driftwood or anything)

So should I try a buffer? More plants to take care of the nitrate? Should I treat the quar. tank with some coppersafe in case of parasites? I dont want to loose these

 

[yvez9]

I think I will invest in a quarantine tank soon too.

barebottom with basic heater and i have a spare aquaclear 150 that would be pefect for the job

I think I'll pick up a cheap 10g tank or even 5g tank dfor this purpose as I'll be getting my 50g next week!

 

[BobK]

I've never messed with the ph before. I've read it's more important to add buffers to prevent ph swings than to have ph exactly where the fish like it. Is there a difference between your ph and the lfs ph? How did you acclimatize the fish when you brought them home? If there was a big difference and you didn't slowly add tank water to the bag they could have been shocked by the difference.

I don't think a ph of 6.8 is too low for a cory, although it isn't ideal. It is more important to keep the ph constant.

 

[corykitty516]

LFS says their PH is 7.0 or even slightly above. I float the bag for 15 min, add a little bit of my tank water, float for 15 more, add more tank water ... on and on .... then scoop the fish into the tank so no bagwater gets in. I was actually far more carful with these than usual because I was about to leave and have my mom look after them for a few days. I didnt want her to have any crisis to deal with.
Went back to LFS today and bought Neutral Regulator by Seachem (also supposed to remove chlorine, chloramine, ammonia, calcium and magnesium). A test brought a sample of tank water to 7.0 almost instantly. How do I add this to my tank without stressing the fish that have acclimated to 6.8? I also add Easy balance, which is not suppposed to change pH, just prevent swings, but I'm not sure that it actually does anything.
To be honest the smallest one never looked quite right. I also thought I saw some stringy white poo but by the time I got close enough for a good look it was gone so I never was sure.

 

[BobK]

Can't answer because I never messed with PH but it's very possible they had some type of bacterial infection (internal) and the stress of being moved was just too much for them to handle. Sorry for your loss. Hopefully someone else will be along soon to provide a little more insight.

 

[-cAtFiSh-]

what kind of cories were they?

 

[corykitty516]

julii... I had 3 to begin with but these brought the group to 6.

 

[modernhamlet]

You're doing just fine. Don't let the LFS guy make you think otherwise. He should not be trying to convince you that a contributing factor in these losses was a pH of 6.8 versus 7.2... He got a bad batch of fish. Period. Tell him you really like his store and are happy to buy stock from him, but this was a bad batch and ask them to speak to the distributor or to warn you if you are buying a fish from that distributor.

Sounds like this LFS is a good one. Maybe they actually want to stock good fish? Help them.