Sick Peppered Cory

[rotex5510]

I have a week old tank set up now. Started with 5 danios and 3 peppered corys. The first morning, one cory was found with his tail stuck in the filter intake, but still alive and breathing very heavily. I freed him and he swam to the bottom. He'd move if the danios picked on him. That afternoon, we couldn't find him for 45 minutes (just a 26 gal tank). I finally found him under a rock and plant where he seemed to be stuck. Freed him again and he went back into hiding. The next afternoon we found his body on the bottom, no tail fin left. The other 2 corys are doing great. We went to get a replacement, and put it in a 10 gal quarantine tank. It seemed to fight the current a lot and wasn't as active as our others. That was yesterday. Today he was floating on his side at the top, but still breathing. He would swim if disturbed, but I noticed a red circle in the middle of the belly, just behind the second set of fins. I removed him to a bowl of water from the big tank, and he started swimming again, but tends to float if relaxed. I put him in the big tank for a minute, but he went to the bottom and let the current wrap him around a plant. So I removed him again. He didn't seem to have the strength to fight the current. What should I do with him?

 

[Cory_Dad]

I have a week old tank set up now. Started with 5 danios and 3 peppered corys. The first morning, one cory was found with his tail stuck in the filter intake, but still alive and breathing very heavily. I freed him and he swam to the bottom. He'd move if the danios picked on him. That afternoon, we couldn't find him for 45 minutes (just a 26 gal tank). I finally found him under a rock and plant where he seemed to be stuck. Freed him again and he went back into hiding. The next afternoon we found his body on the bottom, no tail fin left. The other 2 corys are doing great. We went to get a replacement, and put it in a 10 gal quarantine tank. It seemed to fight the current a lot and wasn't as active as our others. That was yesterday. Today he was floating on his side at the top, but still breathing. He would swim if disturbed, but I noticed a red circle in the middle of the belly, just behind the second set of fins. I removed him to a bowl of water from the big tank, and he started swimming again, but tends to float if relaxed. I put him in the big tank for a minute, but he went to the bottom and let the current wrap him around a plant. So I removed him again. He didn't seem to have the strength to fight the current. What should I do with him?

Wait a minute. 'I have a week old tank'. Did you cycle the tank before adding the fish? What are the water parameters (ammonia , nitrite, nitrate)? Is this your first set up?

I'm not sure what., if anything, you can do. He sure is a fighter. You can try daily water changes with pre treated water, and a treatment of Melafix and Pimafix, and prayer. Drop in a big air stone to keep up the oxygen level.

But for that sake of the other fish get that tank cycled, please.

I have a week old tank set up now. Started with 5 danios and 3 peppered corys. The first morning, one cory was found with his tail stuck in the filter intake, but still alive and breathing very heavily. I freed him and he swam to the bottom. He'd move if the danios picked on him. That afternoon, we couldn't find him for 45 minutes (just a 26 gal tank). I finally found him under a rock and plant where he seemed to be stuck. Freed him again and he went back into hiding. The next afternoon we found his body on the bottom, no tail fin left. The other 2 corys are doing great. We went to get a replacement, and put it in a 10 gal quarantine tank. It seemed to fight the current a lot and wasn't as active as our others. That was yesterday. Today he was floating on his side at the top, but still breathing. He would swim if disturbed, but I noticed a red circle in the middle of the belly, just behind the second set of fins. I removed him to a bowl of water from the big tank, and he started swimming again, but tends to float if relaxed. I put him in the big tank for a minute, but he went to the bottom and let the current wrap him around a plant. So I removed him again. He didn't seem to have the strength to fight the current. What should I do with him?

Wait a minute. 'I have a week old tank'. Did you cycle the tank before adding the fish? What are the water parameters (ammonia , nitrite, nitrate)? Is this your first set up?

I'm not sure what., if anything, you can do. He sure is a fighter. You can try daily water changes with pre treated water, and a treatment of Melafix and Pimafix, and prayer. Drop in a big air stone to keep up the oxygen level.

But for that sake of the other fish get that tank cycled, please.

 

[rotex5510]

Trying everything we can at this point, since the books we read before buying fish never said anything about fishless cycling. They just said to get hardy fish. Apparently the LFS doesn't know that corys aren't hardy. My first tank, but not my husband's. Apparently he just got lucky with his first one. Doing a daily 15% water change with a pH neutralizer and chlorine remover. The first two corys still seem very active. The replacement in the 10 gal tank mostly sits on the bottom, swims a few inches and stops again. Seems to still have some red inside the belly, so we're waiting to see if he improves. One danio died today, the thinnest one that was always chased into hiding by the others. Our pH was high at first 8.1. The LFS complained at the water test, but theirs is 8.0. I got ours down to 7.4. Ammonia is at 1.5, nitrates just starting to register a bit. I'm adding a daily powdered bacteria to try to kick start the cycle faster. I'm down to feeding every other day to try to keep the ammonia down.

 

[keenonfish]

You need to be doing 50% water changes probably more than once a day right now! Any trace of Ammonia especially at high ph is bad for fish and your fish will be suffering - seems you have fully stocked the tank from the start! Very bad advice from the LFS

I hope someone will be along soon to give more concise advice. In the mean time can you not split your fish between both tanks, unless you mean't the quarantine tank is 10 liters not 10 gallons?

 

[Inchworm]

Hi rotex5510

You have some problems going on, and you will probably lose that cory, but there is some good news too. If your husband has an established tank going, you can probably transfer some of the beneficial bacteria over into your new one.

I'm going to move your thread over to the New to the Hobby section where the members will help walk you through this. In the meanwhile, please post more information about your tank and your husbands tank too. Tank sizes, water test results, temperature, fish, etc. will all be helpful.

 

[fatheadminnow]

....but I noticed a red circle in the middle of the belly, just behind the second set of fins.

The red circle, if it was around his anus, would be an indication of worms.

Like inchworm said, not all hope it lost, but if you could post some info, like what inchworm said.

To transfer beneficial bacteria from one tank to another, all you do is take some mature filter media out of your husbands filter and put it in your filter.

Mature filter media would be like the foam insert in your husbands filter, or if he has some bioballs or ceramic.

What you want to do is cut a piece of his foam insert, and put that into your filter. Then replace the foam you took from your husbands filter with a new piece.

You are going to have to closely monitor his water stats, as you are taking some beneficial bacteria away from his tank, that means there is not going to be enough to support his "bio-load" until more bacteria colonize on the new foam insert you put in his filter.

Hope this helps a little for ya!?

-FHM

 

[OldMan47]

If you have ammonia at 1.5 ppm, do 3 50% water changes an hour apart before you even bother to check water parameters again. When you check again, I am hoping you will see less than 0.25 ppm and your fish will look much better. At that point, you can start monitoring parameters and worry about cloning the existing tank's filter but the first thing is emergency water changes so your fish can survive. The filter clone can work very well and is done by taking no more than 1/3 of the media from the fully cycled filter to use in the new one. Even after cloning a filter, it is important to monitor your water quality and maintain it using water changes until all becomes stable.