cory did dolphin like behavior... what happened?

[bodhidiver]

hello all

wish i knew about this site when before i lost my cories.

I have a 75 gal tank with 4 discus, about 5 assorted tetras, 6 in clown loach and 6-8 in Striped raphael and 4-6 in spotted rapheal. I month ago i added 3 spotted cories i obtained from Petsmart. On the second morning I found one cory dead. A few days later another was found in the morning dead. (I've never seen the raphael be aggressive but the fact i found them dead in the morning made me think perhaps the striped cat tried to eat them... However the last Cory seemed to be fine. About a week ago, i noticed it was doing this like 'flipper' dolphin tail swimming (with its head fully out of the water) Anyone know what it was trying to do? it would keep its head above water for 5 6 seconds at a time.... more than the standard gulp

[Silurus]

This sounds like the corys were reacting adversely to something in the water (e.g. pH extremes). Might make sense to test your water.

[bodhidiver]

sorry i neglected to give my water conditions

my ph is 7.8
Water is pretty hard
nitrite and amonia levels are almost non-existant.


1/3 tank W/C every week.

[Pooks73]

your ammonia and nitrite levels should be completly non-existant, at 0 at all times. this could have been the reason for the cory deaths.

i am very doubtful that any of the raph cats had anyhting to do with it. they are very peaceful, and good tankmates. mine doesn't bother a soul, and he gets picked on all the time.

on a side note, the majority of fish that you'll get from a place like petsmart will be ill when you get them. always, and i mean always, qt fish before adding them to your main tank, especailly if you get them from chain stores. you're corys were probably ill when you got them, which is why the first two died so quickly.

[Shawnm311]

why is this ??
on a side note, the majority of fish that you'll get from a place like petsmart will be ill when you get them.

[Rusty]

Bad living conditions, because of the staff not giving a damn.

[Shawnm311]

so they dont take care of them there? I am just wondering because thats the only place to buy fish where I live

[Silurus]

Unfortunately, that seems to be the case. They'll throw the fish in overcrowded conditions, put diseased fish among healthy ones, and not remove dead and dyingfishes from the tank. That's been my experience with these places.

[Pooks73]

it's not true of ALL major chains, but the vast majority of them it is. most of the time the staff of the fish departments are not hobbiests, they have no idea how to take care of fish, and get all of 5 minutes of training when they start. they give the worst advice that i've ever heard to customers, and make up some odd excuses for when fish die. the tanks are in horrible condition, way overstocked, and not cleaned nearly enough. i've gotten fish from petco before, and i've never had one live longer than a week. they all had some sort of disease or illness when i got them, or showed it within a day or two of bringing them home. it's really sad, but that's just the reality of many large chain stores.

[S. Allen]

;) the majority of places like that are run by businessmen, and tended to by pimply pothead teens who know no more about fish than I do about women. There are a few exceptions, I remember one particularly bright fellow at a pets mart. always knew the score, didn't look at me like I was nuts when I told him what I kept, and did actually dole out some good advice(overheard while I was filter shopping no doubt). Odd fellow, makeup, painted nails with that piercing thing through it, you know, with a little charm on it? but I made it a point to go to that store, even though it wasn't the closest, or exactly in the best area of town, until he disappeared.

Taking care of fish isn't a good business practice, name an LFS who's owner drives a caddy or other such nicer car, and I'll bet he had previous money. You care about fish, you drive away business. A good example, my favorite LFS refuses to sell fish to children unaccompanied by a parent. He's turned them down more than a few times when I'm there, a cheap betta that could have made him a buck or so that he wouldn't sell. It has, somewhat, made me appreciate that store for what it is, and, I've sold and bought enough through him to make up for probably most of the child sales combined. But, that's not the case normally. Another example. Right now he has dedicated a 180 to the giants that are commonly bought. Oscars, plecos, a tinfoil barb, knife fish... When he could, and if it was me I would, have that set up as a stingray tank. You sell someone a 10 gallon tank and an oscar, and a filter, heater, lights, hideous gravel, ceramic dealybobs and plastic divers, and you've probably made a pretty decent amount of $. If you'd said that the oscar would take a 55 gallon minimum, 50% of people would say "Fuck that, my cousin tony has one in a 30 and it's a foot long, you don't know what you're talking about." and walk out with nothing.

The major pet chains are money making ventures. That's how it is. People demand cheap fish that don't neccessarily have to live long(as my guess most are dead in less than a year anyhow). They are providing that service. To paraphrase the great Hunter S. Thompson, "It's straight economics man."

[bodhidiver]

I have been weary of chain fish as well and have had hit and miss sucess in the past. Some of the fish i've purchased from petsmart have stuck around for 6 years plus now others don't make the week.
The reason i'm looking at the raphael is because, the cories that died in the night looked healthy and active right before i turn out the light. The next morning, i would find them dead with what looked like some kind of internal hemmoraging laterally about a third of the fish from the caudal fin. So it's seems too far back along the body to be intestinal. Their back seems a little crooked right at point where it would get stuck in the raphaels mouth.
One night while sleeping in the living room, i heard a massive splash what could only have been made by a big fish like the raphael jumping out of the water or gulping a large portion of the water at the surface. Having never seen the raphael since i bought the fish 6 years ago, i got out my video camera and turned on the night vision. I see a huge raphael actively swimming all over every corner of the tank. It is easily 2.5 in wide at the gills. I suddenly remembered when it was much smaller how it aggressively grabbed a few inch and a half long spirulina pellets chomping trying to get it to fit down it's throat. At the time the cat was so small i didn't think it was possible but it did.
Plus some of my neons have just flat out gone missing. always at night.
but im digressing. What kind of parasite would only attack the cories and not the loach or other cats?
Or was it simply too hot? is 90 too hot for spotted cories?

[Shawnm311]

I did not know that about petsmart..the people there always give me advice..but I also always see dead fish in the tanks.and the tanks are always poorly taken care of.

[clothahump]

I was recently talking to a manager of one of a large chain of shops in the UK, up around Berkshire I think, they do not have quarantine facilities in any of their shops.
The fish arrive in the country from the exporters, they are then put straight into the tanks as soon as the doors are closed, next morning the staff arrive early to remove the dead fish before opening for business.
I would like to see better regulations for the treatment of fish.

[bodhidiver]

another problem with petsmart i have noticed is that all of the tanks are connected by the same giant filtration system. Basically if one tank has sick fish it will spread to every tank connected.

the petsmart where i live isn't that bad. Generally from my observations, with regards to petsmart, either the entire fish section is having problems or the entire fish section is 'reletively' healthy.

[S. Allen]

that's been my general observation too. Multi-tank filtration systems can be safe, or relatively safe, if you use a UV sterilizer, although I'm guessing most places don't.

[Taratron]

I worked at a PetsMart for almost two years.

I will NEVER buy a fish from this branch ever again!

Every Tuesday, new fish would come in. Their bags would be floated for an hour or so, then dumped into the tanks right away. After all the fish were in the tanks, everyone was to be fed frozen food--even the goldfish and African cichlids that could not digest protein.

Come Tuesday evening, and Wednesday morning, sometimes 50% of the stock, both new and old, was dead.

The only reason my store GOT a sick tank set up was because I complained to management for all the fungused fish we had on display. They set up a 20gallon tank, without a heater, with the most basic filtration, and offered that people should water change as they could. Sometimes this tank held 4 Oscars. Sometimes Oscars and gouramis at the same time. Black ghost knives on one half of the divider, and convicts on the other.

Eventually a heater was installed, but the tank was a joke--no one water changed, no one medicated, and half the time managment told me NOT to medicate, because it cost the store money to medicate sick fish. I was told on one occasion to "get rid of" three goldfish because we needed the space for Oscars. I was told to leave the goldies in a bucket of water with baking soda. Needless to say, I didn't do that.

One entire shipment of Oscars had Hole-In-The-Head. Since I could not describe this enough, my manager told me to place the worst looking Oscars in the sick tank, and NOT to medicate at all, not even to water change.

Not to mention all the time I found fungused newts in the newt and frog cage...or the times 90% of the feeder fish died....or the times we had to salt the betta water because management said it kept ich down....

PetsMart. Blah. I don't trust these people as far as I could throw them!