Peppered cory.. redness

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mbsqw1d

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Hello

Recently setup a Roma 200 tank and so far have 6 peppered corys. They're all very active and eating well. One in particular (see pic), seems to have some redness and I'm hoping its not the dreaded red blotch disease?
What are your thoughts?
Many Thanks
 

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I'm managing to keep parameters under control the best i can, given its a new setup. Hoping any ammonia spikes are softened by the plants. The plants are thriving but difficult to know if the filter is developing with the plants gobbling up any ammonia/nitrate.
The fish look to be thriving. If i was being optimistic, id like to say the redness is perhaps a female with eggs? And the redness is increased blood supply? Not sure is this is a thing though. I had cory eggs from some bronze about 10 years ago but dont remember any redness
 
I'm sure its nothing, but I can be wrong as I don't have experience with fish diseases. @Colin_T can help for sure, he's more experienced than me. I'd just recommend doing water changes. Also to kickstart more the cycle you can use Tetra's Safe Start too.
 
The fish look to be thriving. If i was being optimistic, id like to say the redness is perhaps a female with eggs? And the redness is increased blood supply?
It has nothing to do with eggs.

It looks a bit like a bacterial infection but can also be caused by poor water quality. If the tank is cycling you need to do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate any day the ammonia or nitrite is above 0ppm, or the nitrate is above 20ppm.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

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Add some salt.
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate will not affect plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

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If there's no improvement after a week of clean water and salt, then post more pictures.
 
Thanks Colin, I appreciate the advise. I'll pick up some salt today and let you know how I get on
 
Step one done. That seemed like a LOT of salt I just added! Fish seem fine with it so far.
 
Could I ask, when I added the fish to the aquarium, ai followed the fish shop's guidance which ultimately ended up with me also adding the water that came with the from the shop's tank... could that be a source of bacteria? Would you recommend, once slowly adding my own tank's water to the bag over a few hours, that I then move the fish with a net and so none of their water is added? Thanks again
 
I recommend putting all new fish, shrimp and plants into a quarantine tank for 4 weeks before adding the fish to an established aquarium. This prevents diseases being introduced into the main tank and if you have to treat the new fish, the quarantine tank normally holds less water than the main tank, so you need less medication.

If you don't have a quarantine tank, then float the fish in the tank for 30 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of tank water to the bag every 5 minutes. Then pour the contents into a bucket and carefully net the fish out and put them in your tank.
 
Hi Colin, i notoced on another thread you had written 'If you have a Corydoras and a pleco in the tank, do not use the salt treatment I suggested, because it is too much salt for them. You can use 1 heaped tablespoon of salt per 20 litres of water and Corydoras and plecos will be fine with that. But do not use more than that.'

Shall i adhere to this rather than upping the dose as you've suggested above? I only have corydoras in the tank. Thankyou
 
you can use 1 or 2 heaped tablespoons of salt for corydoras and Plecostomus and other suckermouth catfishes.
 
Theres certainly a noticeable improvement this morning! Included before/after pic
Will do a large water change this afternoon and perhaps a few daily 10% ones to remove any salt?
 

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The infection looks to be back again, actually looks at bit worse than the first time. I'm going to add the salt and wondered if this table salt I have, which contains 'anti-caking agent: sodium ferrocyanide', would be ok to use?
 
salt containing anti-caking agents or iodine are not suitable for fish.

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did you keep salt in the tank since this started?
did you increase the dose to 2 heaped tablespoons?
what is the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate?
 

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