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I purchased a breeding colony of nine corys from a guy this weekend. By the time I got them home one was on its side and within an hour all the rest but two were dead. I put them in a tank with multiple fish that have no problems at all. When I woke up this morning the other two were also dead. Any theory on what happened?? Was it just shock. They all appeared in excellent health.

What species were they? There are a few that release strong toxins when captured/caught. What happens is, when the fish are caught and placed in a bag of water after being undisturbed fro a while, they release toxins into the water which effectively poisons them. The toxins are part of their defence against predation. Some are more toxic than others, if you have ever been spiked by a Cory you will know how much it stings. The way to prevent this from happening is quite simple. Catch the fish and put them into a container and leave them in it for 5 minutes, but disturb then a couple of time while they are in there. Take another container/bag and put fresh water from the main tank in it, then catch the fish and put them into the secont container/bag, then throw the water from the first container away.

If you buy Corys from a fish store it is always a good idea to get the assistant to do similar, this will hopefully prevent unneccesary losses.

Ian

Are there many species which release toxins?

They were Super Arcuatus Cory

Sorry to hear about that.

How were the corys transported? Where all nine fish in one container? If so it could be the the stress of this caused the deaths.

They were all in one big bag together. They spent a good 5 hours in there and were handled by alot of people. They were auctioned off at the Honolulu Aquarium Society meeting. I was crushed when they died. I was looking foward to experimenting with breeding these guys.

To be honest I think 9 corys in one bag is probably the cause of their deaths.

In my experience Corys do not travel at all well, the few that survived and died during the night probably had suffered too much stress during the journey.

Regards

I had Pygmies die when shipped: 12 of them. It took one week, but they died. The Otos that came in the same shipment (different bags) are in great shape. Do you think individual bagging would make a difference if I order Cories again(not necessarily Pygmies, just Cories in general)?