When A Cory Loses Its Barble...

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@This Old Spouse- Thank you for posting that, my sentiments exactly :good:
 
That's what I was thinking but I wasn't really sure.
 
Hey,
I know the thread is old, but this keeps coming up.

I have kept corys on sharp gravel and on sand. On filthy sand and on clean sand. I bought 6 corys, 1 had eroded gills. I started researching and assumed the substrate in the shop had hurt their barbels and that my sharp gravel would cause further damage. Then I did some proper research and drew my own conclusions.

Btw, of the original six, 5 died. The barbels got shorter over time and in the end the barbels were gone, the gills got red and the mouth was affected. When I saw this horrible state the first time, I obviously made sure none of the other fishes suffered the same fate. Still one after one they went from perfectly fine to dead. I changed to sand long before anything started to go bad. I kept the sand clean. I had zero nitrate, ammonia etc. One survived and was thriving in the same tank as the others and have since lived through all kinds of conditions with no problems whatsoever.

My conclusion was that this is a slowly progressing infection probably carried with them for a long time and then during shipment, change of environment etc and the stress this results in the infection takes hold. When the barbels start to go, the disease is already progressed and hard to stop. It is hard to diagnose early, the first signs seem to be that they are not quite as active as the healthy ones.

Then I got another 3 corys, they all looked healthy. After a few days, one of them started to show signs out of the blue. Again water is spot on, the dude that survived lives in much filthier conditions. Separated them, clearly the disease spreads.

I think we can rule out the substrate and the nitrate levels. It shows all the signs of an ongoing infection. I am not sure why people do not think it is a primary infection. The only reason I can think of when it comes to my sole survivor is immunity. She never showed any signs of the illness despite living with 5 diseased corys.

My original corys struggled with it for months, some of them recovered then got ill again. I isolated etc to no use. It is hard to do something before they show obvious signs and then it is hard to stop it. In the end I saw fungus on the first one who died, but I think that was a secondary infection.

I somehow doubt that it is bacterial due to the extremely slow progression and fungal infections are usually secondary in immunocompromised patients. Perhaps an opportunistic bacterial infection? Those normally take a lot longer because they are not primary pathogens. A young parasite fit the bill as previously mentioned. Parasites never kill their host quickly, it is not in their interest, the most efficient parasites evolve towards a symbiotic relationship with the host.

Either way I guess the only way forward is to compare notes on medication...
 
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Hmm, I had an oto die unexpectedly today. All parameters were fine, then I looked at the water in a microscope... Full of copepods...

Copepods love good water parameters. Its a planted tank so I was probably overfeeding. The copepods ate the excess food quickly(otherwise I would have noticed), the typical signs of overfeeding were not present: no planaria, no algae, no snails. The nitrate was most likely sucked up by the plants. Everbody was happy except the fish.

The copepods do not harm the fish, just annoying and stressful in those amounts... You live and you learn, I should use a microscope more often. They are visible to the eye as well if you put some water in a container and let the water settle, its just a pain to see them(at least for me). Under a microscope they are easy to see, even with a really cheap one.
 
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