What's wrong with my Cory? Please help!

[Violence]

Tank:
I have a 55 gallon tank. 8 Panda Cory's, 9 Mollies, 3 Golden Apple snails, 3 Pleco's. 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites, 10-15ppm Nitrates, Ph 7.4, temp. 79.8. Sand and Rounded Gravel (part of the tank now has sand). Has a Tetra 70-80 Filter (If I'm not mistaken). 25% water changes once every week and half/two weeks (more or less often if needed), siphon the gravel once a month or two, also as needed. They get “ambient” natural light from 8 hours to 10 hours a day, but no direct sunlight. I practically never put the lights on. Last water change was today. My test kit is with drops, not with strips. Tank is fully cycled, I have a thermometer. There's wood, rocks (without calcium and such), a lot of plants, caves and other various hiding places. Half of the tank (horizontally) has bubble air stones, and two other corners of the tank also have small air stones.

(I hope I'm not forgetting anything).

Tank mates:
All other Cory's are very happy and active (very hyper) swimming through the bubble walls and munching non stop. The Pleco's are growing VERY quickly, as well as the Snails which are having an extreme growth-boost, the Mollies have been makin' a lot of babies. So I guess they're all really happy and healthy. Except for one of my male Mollies which has a Pop-Eye caused by the bubbler's which are now turned down a bit and the swelling has also gone down. I had a few losses caused by an extreme heat wave and no electricity (3 Cory's 3 Mollies). Last bought was three Mollies about a month ago.

Food:
Sinking Pellets for Catfish, Algae Wafers, Blood worms, Sinking Tropical "grains", Mosquito Larvae, Brine-Shrimp, Dry Shrimps, Zucchini, Grapes, Carrots, Plankton, Salad, Cucumber, Apples, Tropical fish flakes. Usually all the non-veggie food is eaten after 5 minutes. I feed them often during the day at small doses but making sure they all get a piece. Veggies which are not eaten during the night (I throw them in before I go to bed) are removed the next morning.

Symptoms:
One of my smaller Cory Panda's is in a really bad state. Lethargic, ragged fins, darkened "skin", no open wounds, fungus or signs of other disease. His hummm, mustache? (I forgot the name sorry) is intact. He just seem as if he is dying. He does not look like his “original” self anymore, he doesn't even look like a Cory Panda (which he is). There's no signs of any parasites, fungus, wounds or bacteria, there's nothing “physical” only his color darkened and his fins are ragged and missing. There's no aggression from other tank mates. He has been hiding a bit because I had to take in Cichlids (emergency) which now I don't have since over a week. So I was "used" to not seeing him often, but his state deteriorated very quickly.

I love him, he was such a happy fish, always active and hyper and cute.

This is him before

(For direct link, click here: http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t17/ ... ssite3.jpg )

This is him now.
(For Direct link, click here: http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t17/ ... ssite1.jpg )



He has a baby face, he's my baby, I love him so much.

(For Direct link, click here: http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t17/ ... ssite2.jpg )

Meds:
The only things I have is Melafix, API Liquid Fungus Cure (containing; Neuroflavine, Providone/Colloid) and Aquarium salt (but this is not good for Cory's).

Does anyone know what's wrong with my Cory?
How do I treat it?
What are his chances?
Should I put him in the breeding net?

Please help me.

[OldMan]

Sorry that I have no clue about most diseases. The only obvious thing that I see is that you are running your tank 3F higher than the maximum for your cory. My own guess is that this will make it harder for him to recover if you can overcome the illness.

[Violence]

I'm really struggeling with the heat here. If I turn it off it will get to cold (air conditionning, I need to keep it on or else I will caught myself to death). And if I leave the thermometer on and the air conditionning on, it will get too cold. But because the weather is so f***ed (sorry for that, but it's really bad) that I'm having difficulty to deal with it.

Exemple:
I come home, it's 77.9F in my tank, it's nice, it's morning. An hour later the heat goes up, the temp is at 84, plus I'm almost dying, then I turn on the air conditionning (of course my thermomether has a timer thing to when it gets a certain temperature it stops heating). Then there's a storm, lights out, humidity but cool, then it gets cold, heat goes down, no themometer, no electricity. Then heat goes back up, big sun, still not electricity... So it's a lot of ups and downs. (My friend lives a bit further form me, and the temps are not even the same where we live...) But I doubt that the water would of caused him to degrade that much. It's really hard to keep the water stable. But all the other Cory's are in 100% perfect heath, happy, chasing each other through the bubbler's...

I was changing the water manually so my fish wouldn't die, but something blew up in my appartment bloc and I was left without electricity for 2 days, so I couldn't change the water as soon as it got too hot because I would of had to be awake 24 hours. I'm already staying up all night for my Cory (yes I do care that much) and I love him so, so much, did you see his face? He cant' die on me I put him in a breeding net because when I found my other dead Cory's they were under the wood and just hidden and I want to keep an eye on him at all times.

He's still moving which is good, but I saw him pass out a few times. I wanted to put him in the Hospital tank but it's impossible at the moment (one of my female Betta's has "clamped fins"). (By the way,this has nothing to do with my current 55 gallon tank, the female Betta is living with another female and three platys). And I'm affraid my Cory might have fin rot or somehtig else (which I highly doubt) or that my Betta has something (which is also very unlikely) but I rather not put them in the same tank.

Does anyone know what my Cory has?
I'm seriously almost crying (imagine that, a chick with 70 hours of tattooing, facial implants, over 20 piericngs and other really, really extreme procedures is crying over a fish)... I wish I could take him to the vet, but it's so damn far and the travel would probably kill him (stress, plus heat, plus traffic...) it takes 1 hour to get there without traffic. and of course I live in MONTREAL and there's always some F***ING TRAFFIC HERE!!! I'm having a nervous break down, I'm so tired and sad blehhh.

I'm not sure if what I'm wirtting is clear, it's 6:30 am here, I'm dyyying.

PS, I thought the wounds on his fins could have been "bitten" by the Cichlids I had (like a month ago, which I gave away, very long story), I had 6 Cichlids, gave 4 away, kept two, one jumped out of his "tank" (which I set-up so they wouldn't attack the other fish) and I had only one left, one of the least aggressive Cichlids (Yellow Lab) and he actually did good in the tank. When he left all my other fish were intact, and the other fish are really docile...

This is exhausting!!! But I lvoe them!!!!

I hope he will pull out of it, I love him (I'm calling him Mop).

And one last thing, thansk so much for all your help in the last posts I made and helping me out. You taught me so many things. So thanks everyone!

[Mike_Noren]

1) A temperature of 26 - 29 degrees Celsius is 100% guaranteed to not be a problem for your cories. Please take my word for it. You will not achieve anything by trying to adjust temperature.

2) My spontaneous reaction when I saw your fish was that it's been beat up on by other fish, but the tankmates you list should not be able to hurt it. Provided you don't have a betta, cichlid, chinese algae eater or other aggressive fish you've forgot to mention, I suppose we can rule out this possibility.
Another thing which can give damages looking like that is if the fish has jumped out of the aquarium, or otherwise had to flop around in air for a while. But I hope we can rule that out as well.

Which leaves us with pretty much just one possibility: bacterial fin rot.
Improve water quality, treat afflicted fish with suitable medication.

[Violence]

Nope, no dangerous fish in there. The female Betta's are in the 10 Gallon tank, and they're sweet hearts anyways.

What do you mean about adjusting the temp? I leave it alone when it's alright. But as I said, sometimes it will go up really fast, and because of the heat wave we had and I had no electricity the water temp. went up shooting then back down not to mention it wasn't very stable during the days I was left without electricity. and all of that maybe caused a lot of stress to the fish. I want my temp to be at 27.

Oh and no, my fish has not jumped out of the aquarium or else I would of known that's the cause of his problems.

I'm still looking for other signs, but there's nothing.

[Lesley_B]

I have no idea what's up with your Cory and he is a sweet looking thing.

You need someone who knows Cories and maybe you could also phone the LFS and ask there?

I was in a flat that ran hot - really hot - south facing with large windows - it baked in there.
I used to freeze a bottle of water and then add it to the tank when that ran high. I ran the heater in the tank but it never kicked in during the summer.
No air con, lol!

To use a 0.5l bottle of water like that, freeze it in a freezer and then double bag it (in those bags fish come home in)
so there is a protective layer of water - then the fish don't get hurt by the frozenness. If you want to add more, prefer 2x 0.5l to 1x 1l.
Easier to get bags that fit!

Keep the heater on then it will kick in if the water temp goes too low.

Unfortunately losing power for a couple of days is bad news for a fish tank. Some diseases take root in colder temps and the fish will also stress if the temp gets too high.
Fluctuating temps in the tank won't be good either. These things will stress the fish and the weaker ones will catch something.
Stress compromises their immune systems.

Try not to feel too bad. I was a real bright spark at Christmas last year, cleaned the tank and changed the water before going away for a week.
I forgot to plug the heater back in after the tank change Very ungood - very sick fish for ages - the loaches have survived but only one
tankbred male platy from that period survives now.

I'm never sure with shoaling fish whether to isolate and treat or whether the loneliness of isolation will stress them further.

Did your pop-eye molly go popeye after the power outage? And have your bettas been clamping only since the power outage?

Tips on any treatment you use - try a half dose first - less likely to harm anything that might be harmed by the treatment, including filters, fish, fry and plants.
Always read the instructions, most treatments require the removal of charcoal (incl. charcoal filters) and any zeolite. ( I have no idea what zeolite is )
Always check whether any treatment are likely to hurt your fish e.g I have loaches and need to be careful should I have to treat for whitespot as most of those treatements may kill them

It won't hurt to use the Melafix at the correct dosage for your tank. It's a good tonic and may just help.

Good luck.

Lesley

[Richard B]

It looks to me like physical injury, not a disease, although disease could set in to a stressed fish. At this stage there does not appear to be any fin rot

My best guess is that the cichlids you used to have did it (they were some sort of mbuna right? {malawi cichlids}). Melafix would be good as if the source of the problem has gone there is a good chance of full recovery, if the water is in good condition.

[Violence]

Yeh, but I wasn't able to use frozen bottles, fridge isn't running without electricity. It's been two weeks though, but 3-4 days after the 2 day outage I had issues with the temp. As I said, the outage made my temp go up and down, then aftyerwards the air conditionning was kicking in but the heater wasn't because the water didn't get cold quickly, then the air condition goes off, heater comes on, but the temp is going back up... (A central air conditionning.) Then the heater goes on and off, on and off... Every second for two hours....

My Mollie got the pop-eye two days ago, well yesterday (well I don't sleep so everything is mixed up but it was after a recent water change), he's doing much better now, the swelling went down loads and he's happy again. He was quite funky lookin My air-stone bubbler things went nuts so I put them down. The Cory's loved them full blast though!

I called the vet (the only good vet is 1 hour from Montreal), the Tech. has no clue what's going on. I also spoke with the Vet. he doesn't know. He said that if it would be fungal or bacterial (even viral) there would be signs, especially if he's in an advanced stage. (He's in advanced stage or something, so if it would be bacterial, viral or fungal there would be other signs). He said if it would be internal, the other Cory's would also show symptoms, or an least they would act differently. He said maybe he has had too much stress with the heat wave/cold going on and he might be genetically weaker, which could be a strong possibility.
EDIT: I translated that, I spoke to the Vet in french, so the terminology might be weird, but the traduction is good. Oh and I bought Maracyn 2 and he told me to use 1/4 of the dose and then add another 1/4 of the dose in the next few hours, so I'd give the tank a 50% strenght treatment to make sure that the other fish are safe in case of any problem

I added Matracyn2. He's still alive (Seriously, doesn't he have a really, really adorable baby face?), he's still lethargic, I have no idea if he ate or not... He seems to be munching a bit but I'm not sure if he's eating or just moving.

I don't have any fry in this tank, the fry are in another tank (they got their own filtered heated tank), I had to buy a tank for them because the Mollies have been worse than rabbits.

As for the female Betta, she's doing better, I just think the heat wave affected her (she's in a 10 gallon with another female and three Platy's and a Golden Apple Snail), it was the same thing with the 10 gallon, heater kicking in not when suposed to, cooling, heating, just fucked up weather...

Oh and the water is in perfect condition, I do water changes usually every week, although it depends, if my Mollies gave birth (I have new ones every week or two) I do a water change, so I know my water is perfect and in good condition.

As for the Cichlids, there was only a Yellow Lab left in there and he was hanging around with the Mollies and not aggressive at all (I had Cherry Zebra's and Yellow labs, gave 4 Cichlids away, was left with a Yellow Lab and a Cherry Zebra, I put them in a smaller tank, the Cherry Zebra found a way to jump out and die, I put the Yellow Lab back in for two days). When I gave the last Yellow Lab away, all the fish were in perfect condition, the Cory's were perfectly healthy and happy.

[Violence]

Oh and as for the filter, I don't use carbon much, only 24 hours after a water change and 48 after a Med treatment.

Another question, I have some nasty brown stuff build-up in the filter pipe/tube, spnge, filter edges and inside. Is this good bacteria, nasty bacteria, normal algae or bad algae? (I don't have an algae problem in my tank.) I rinse out the bio-filter sponge with aquarium water in a bucket once a month to get rid of that brown stuff. What should I do about it? There's no smell, it's a bit jelly-like.

[Richard B]

Given the damage, the yellow lab is a likely culprit - they can turn in an instant, even if they look sweet & don't seem to be up to anything

[Violence]

Okay, one last time, the Yellow Lab (Cichlid) left a while back. When he was gone my Cory was 100% fine. When I gave away the Cichlid, I checked with all my fish if they were fine, and they're all perfect. So the Cichlid has nothing to do with it!

[Violence]

Oh, and one of my Mollies gave birth AGAIN, I have no clue which one, they're all still fat...