Strangely Behaving Sick Cory

[fishscape]

Hello folks, I'm currently having a little trouble with one of my corys, decided to make a post seeking some advice about it.

The issue is a buoyancy issue, I suspect he might have a swim bladder issue but I've never had a fish with swim bladder issues before so I'm not sure. When I looked up my issue online, it said it might be swim bladder but I want to be completely sure.
When they are active, they can swim around at the bottom, but the moment they stop swimming they rise to the top of the water and rest on their side. When very gently prompted, they will take a moment but swim back to the bottom of the tank for a few moments to scuffle across the substrate but float back up only a bit after. They seem healthy other than this though, and when they are moving on the bottom their behavior is normal. Sometimes when they float back to the top they attempt to swim downwards as if struggling against this floating issue.
As I type this he is actually resting on the bottom, which is strange compared to his other behavior from the previous day and night. Even if the issue might have passed I still want to post about it to avoid it in the future.

My tank specs are as follows:

15 Gallon - Fluval Flex​

• A Piece of Cholla Wood
• A Piece of Drift Wood
• Fluval Shrimp and Plant Stratum
• Fluval M50 Submersible Heater (I keep the temperature between 72-75.)
• Shrimp Feeding Tube + Feeding Dish (Their diet consists of two Shrimp King Complete pellets every 1-2 days.)

Plants​

• Small Patch of Dwarf Baby Tears Moss
• Several Java Ferns
• Unidentified long frond plant

Inhabitants​

• x1 Adolfoi Corydora
• x2 Bronze Corydora
• x1 Sterba Corydora (This is the cory with the issue.)
• x3 Oto Catfish

The tank used to have 20 neocardina shrimps that passed due to an unfortunate incident with the tank's filter system not being shrimp-proofed. I removed the majority of the sad little shrimp corpses, with only 2 being MIA. I did a major water change after this, with 50% of the water being changed almost immediately. This was a little more than a week ago. There had also been a second Adolfoi cory that passed away due to unknown reasons, he was not discolored and didn't have ick or fungus to my knowledge. It had been two days after joining the tank and I believe this might have been from the stress, but I'm not sure. I did another water change after this as well.
I do 20% water changes once every 3-4 days other than that though.
I know the corys can be stressed from not being in a group of the same species, but I'm not sure my tank can hold more than six of them since I'm not knowledgable on how many corys can be in a tank of this size and want to be careful. I'm expecting to eventually receive more of them in the mail though after I understand what's wrong with this one, as I don't want to have this issue in the future.
The Adolfoi and the Bronze enjoy scuffling for food together but the Sterba only likes scuffling with the Adolfoi. I fear he's lonely.

Water Parameters​

• Approx 150 GH
• Approx 0-0.3 NO2
• Approx 5-8 NO3
• Approx 20-40 KH
• Approx 6.5-6.8 pH

I'm not sure what the exact measurements are since the tests I use are paper strips that change color. I'm looking at them in the brightest light I can however so I'm hoping they are accurate. I can't currently read the ammonia level in the water since I accidentally ran out of tests and am waiting for more to arrive in the mail. They're supposed to arrive in 1-2 days according to the shipping information. I'll update with the information about the ammonia levels when the testing kit arrives.

If it matters for anything, these corys are participating in a research study that I'm conducting pertaining to various species of small freshwater catfish and their behavior when listening to various genres of music. Once a day they listen to medium volume music from a record player sitting on the same surface as their tank. It's a reasonable volume and not loud. I'm not sure if that would cause this sort of issue though, but if it does please let me know.

 

[Colin_T]

It's probably air in the intestine. Catfish regularly take in air from the surface to breath and to help their buoyancy. If they ingest too much air, they can float. When the air passes out their butt (yes, fish do fart), they sink.

The problem can also occur if they eat a lot of dry food or floating food because that has air in it too.

Stop feeding dry food for a week and give them frozen or live foods instead. Then add a bit of dry food back into the diet but keep feeding frozen and or live foods too. The problem should go away by itself with less dry food in the diet.

If anyone tries to sell you a swim bladder cure/ treatment, do not buy it. There is no cure for true swim bladder problems and most fish that allegedly have swim bladder problems, simply have air in their intestines.

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Your science project about fish behaviour and music sounds interesting (no pun intended). The record player on the same bench as the tanks might skew the results though because fish can feel vibration and the record player might produce some vibration in the bench that the fish can pick up.

I would also run each tank in a separate room with its own record player/ sound system and keep the music going for 1, 3, 6, 12 & 24 hours a day.

Have one tank of fish that gets no music (the control) and the other tanks get the different types of music. See what the results are like after a month.

You could even have a set of tanks that get music during the day when the fish are resting, and a group of tanks that get the same music at night when the fish are active. There might be a difference between listening to music when resting vs listening to music while active.

Make sure you have at least 6 (preferably 10) of each species per tank so they can behave naturally in a group. if you only have a few fish per tank, their behaviour will not be normal due to the stress of being in small numbers.

Keep us updated on the experiment or start a thread/ journal about it on the forum.

 

[fishscape]

It's probably air in the intestine. Catfish regularly take in air from the surface to breath and to help their buoyancy. If they ingest too much air, they can float. When the air passes out their butt (yes, fish do fart), they sink.

The problem can also occur if they eat a lot of dry food or floating food because that has air in it too.

Stop feeding dry food for a week and give them frozen or live foods instead. Then add a bit of dry food back into the diet but keep feeding frozen and or live foods too. The problem should go away by itself with less dry food in the diet.

If anyone tries to sell you a swim bladder cure/ treatment, do not buy it. There is no cure for true swim bladder problems and most fish that allegedly have swim bladder problems, simply have air in their intestines.

------------------
Your science project about fish behaviour and music sounds interesting (no pun intended). The record player on the same bench as the tanks might skew the results though because fish can feel vibration and the record player might produce some vibration in the bench that the fish can pick up.

I would also run each tank in a separate room with its own record player/ sound system and keep the music going for 1, 3, 6, 12 & 24 hours a day.

Have one tank of fish that gets no music (the control) and the other tanks get the different types of music. See what the results are like after a month.

You could even have a set of tanks that get music during the day when the fish are resting, and a group of tanks that get the same music at night when the fish are active. There might be a difference between listening to music when resting vs listening to music while active.

Make sure you have at least 6 (preferably 10) of each species per tank so they can behave naturally in a group. if you only have a few fish per tank, their behaviour will not be normal due to the stress of being in small numbers.

Keep us updated on the experiment or start a thread/ journal about it on the forum.

I'm a little happy to know that the issue is something minor like the form of food I'm giving them. Brings back a little confidence, haha. I'll get some live/frozen food next time I go out shopping, and I think I'll feel a little better about getting some corys now that I know it's most likely not a water issue. Hopefully, that will assist the others with the tank stress.
I'm not sure how the frozen/live food works but I'll be sure to read the packages in the store to give it a shot.
Thank you for the heads up on the thing about people spreading things about the swim bladder problems though, I'm a bit of the type to believe things I read on the internet sometimes when it comes to things like that.
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Ah, I hadn't thought about the vibrations from the record player skewing the results. I'll really need to consider buying a second tank though at least to have as a control since this is the only brand/type of tank I have that's this one in specific.
I'll definitely consider making a journal thread about them though once I get the second tank cycled and in the house.
This might be skewed results due to being a bit of a small group (and the vibrations), but so far they seem to enjoy my record "African Animal Puzzle" by Taeko Onuki. I ordered some more records from a similar type of music so I could see if it's just that record in particular or if they like the genre itself.

 

[Colin_T]

If you already have an established tank with an established filter, you can take half the filter media/ material from that tank and use it in the new tank. Then you don't have to cycle the new tank and can set it up with plants, water and gravel, wait a few days, add some of the established filter media and add some fish.