From just personal knowledge gained from my time working at the local petshop fish room, and at at home I've come to suspect that both the bronze cory and their albino variant are not bred very well anymore. Prone to sickness, mostly no longer good looking, things like missing an eye (born like that ...

Some of my cats have regrown barbels (to an extent), some really have not. One, my elegans that did grow them back, another, an albino, did not. Don't know why. They both were not totally completely gone. I think I used a low dose of Melafix for both, but can't remember too well.
Melafix does seem ...

I think hormonal spawning does have a place, like when it's an attempt to stop taking fish from the wild, and start breeding domestically. Clown Loach for example. All of them are taken from the wild, and none have yet to be domestically bred (unless I missed the news?). I'm rather uneasy about ...

I always hate running into fish in the store that are sick or being mis-treated. It's so hard not to take them all home to rescue. I've tried, but they never seem to really recover. :(

From my good LFS though, I actually did have a little albino cory that seemed to do fine with having almost no ...

Sorry, been a while since your post, but here goes for my cats...

Mine definitely look well fed and eat well. The 'girls' do have a quite round belly, and the 'boys' have quite a flatter belly, but aren't scrawny. Some eat much more than others. The main culprit being my favorite, a very, very ...

Awesome!

About the brine shrimp, I read something somewhere they aren't so good for cory catfish babies. Too salty. Anyone more experienced know if that's true?

I find my fish doing that occasionally. Well, it looks more like the swim and kinda "bounce" themselves off of the driftwood or another object. They'll do that twice or three times in a row against things then go back to their normal business.

Some do it more than others, but I've had them a long ...

Dunno about the other stuff, but sounds to me like you might have got "Green gold catfish", Corydoras melanotaenia. Looked him up yet?

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/image.php?image_id=8993

Mine are much greener. They kinda look like Corydoras aeneus, but leaner, more elongated, and (usually ...

Aww man, that sucks. My sympathies.


- Atlantis

I would not recommend salt for Corys. They don't appreciate it, even under normal circumstances.
Yes for most other fresh water fish, but cats are one of the exceptions.

Glad to hear they're doing well. :) What medication are you using?

Personally I like to use Melafix for fin rot. If not for ...

Maybe just genetics?

Some of my corys have grown large for their breed, others, like my panda, are small for theirs. Same food and tank.

One time at a (really terrible chain pet store fish room) I saw the hugest peppered catfish ever. Both males and females.
So wanted to bring a few home, but have ...

She's one of my peppered, and I've had her about two years now. She started proping herself up against the glass starting about a month ago, or swimming up against it, kinda looking like a little pleco.

Not sure if that's connected in any way but,

She's gradually started breathing rapidly over the ...

I didn't know there was medication for internal parasites. Does it work? How do you know if they have any in them?

I thought you couldn't know it was there or treat it, and it was a possible cause of 'mystery deaths.'


-Atlantis

Oh, and the corys were almost adult size, but not quite. But the pairs were still equally sized (except the slight belly of the girls)


- Atlantis

"I personally know of some Corydoras which have lived over 10 years in captivity."

Awesome!


"Any differences you have noticed constitute too small a number to be statistically significant. You are only seeing a coincidence."

Yeah, probably. I did want to see if there was anything similar from ...

Title says it all really. Why I'm asking if you think this may be true is because of my own female to male ratio.

I usually buy my corys in a pair. One female, one male. If tragedy strikes in the tank, it's the male that dies, not the female (yes I'm sure of gender)

Of 2 albinos
Of 2 bronze
Of 2 ...

Being a novice fish owner, I'd never heard of fin rot which is why it got so bad. About how long did it take for her fins to regrow? (My cory is finally off meds and getting much stronger.)

About 2 and a half weeks for mine. The fins usually don't grow back to look exactly the same, but can get ...

Things seem back to normal and in balence again. The fish have gotten better and those that had some fin rot are re-growing nicely.


- Atlantis

Slugs? Eeew! They are slimy buggers. I wouldn't risk it.

Earthworms I've heard are plenty good. They sell fish food containing chopped earthworm flakes now. I considered buying it, but already have an embarassingly large selection of different fish foods.

Next time I try fresh I think I'll need to ...

Glad you found something that works. :D Sometimes you have to try different meds to till something'll do right for your particular fish. Just like with humans.

Never give up on a paleatus cory; they are tough fish!

So true! My little girl paleatus went through some pretty bad fin rot herself ...

Good point about the gravel. Are your cory's whiskers ok, or are they being worn down or totally missing?

I'd think they'd be the first to have troubles if it's the gravel. Them being what he roots for food with and being so delicate and all.


- Atlantis

I'd be nervous putting 2 medications together. Pimafix is for fungal problems anyways, and if there isn't any it's probably better not to. 25% water change before you do each treatment to take out some from the day before and add O2. Keep normal filtration running (without the carbon) as well.

I ...

What kind of catfish is it? Are the other cats going up for air too, or just the sick one?

I wouldn't worry about the cat resting alot, unless that's a change in behavior. Some species aren't as active as others. Young catfish seem to be very hyper, but they slow down as they reach adulthood too ...

Intesting. Now I've found empty snail shells. A whole lot of them.


- Atlantis

Now that honestly does make me laugh out loud.


- Atlantis

KH=80? I presume that is 80 ppm since I would have expected a numerical value of something like 6 to 12. Does the kit give you conversion rates for reporting in different units?

5 different ones, though 4 seem real weird. The oringinal 8 multiplied by 10 gives the mg/L. Sorry, should have put ...

By the way, why can't I write Pleco properly? What's with the *? Not like it's a swear or anything.


- Atlantis

Sorry for all the questions. Some more...
Questions good. They'll hopefully help me get answers. :) I need answers.

Do you know what your KH is?

As of right now, 80

How do you measure the pH?

Using the high range test from the "pH high range (7.4-8.6)" of a chemical aquarium test kit ...

When you say the pH has gone up to 8.3 do you know what it went up from? As pH is logarithmic, a full unit change is +/- 10, a half unit change is +/- 3.2 and a change of 0.3 is +/- 2.

Has been a while, but I think it was 7.8. Have to start keeping a "fish tank journal" again. *sigh*

Like the ...

The water I got has no minerals, pH of 7.6. I did a 2 gallon water change for it (the aquarium is a 22 gallon).


- Atlantis