PlanetCatfish.com

Hi my name is Danielle and I'm a very saddened hobbyist. I had recently purchased eight skunk corydoras and I'm now left with only three. I have in a 30 gallon a mixture of plants, some drfitwood and 3 female bettas and some apple snails as tank mates. To help supplement the female bettas for breeding I had placed almond tree leaves inside of the tank. I thought that since the leaves worked well to condition the water for the bettas, lowering the PH and creating a natural antibiotic environment that the leaves wouldn't hurt. Well first my snails passed away, I couldn't find one of them at first then I found him underneath the piece of driftwood I had bought from the local fish hobbyist store. Next to my horror two corydoras were also under the driftwood almost decayed through. Frantically I placed the remaining cories inside of a quarantine bucket with an areator and small filter, but no success. I lost three more. I have no clue why the sudden deaths. Has anyone every heard of having the mishap of mixing tropical leaves in with the corydoras catfish? I have moved them into their own ten gallon tank and I hope I do not loose the rest. ;(

This thread probably should move to Corydoras section.

According to this text, it's not poisonous:
http://www.belowwater.com/products/wild ... index.html

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Mats

Did you test the pH of the water? Adding Terminalia leaves can cause your pH to crash if you're not careful.

Do you mean this product?===>http://www.tropical.com.pl/EN/careprodu ... apang.html

If yes i am using this in all my tanks without a problem.

As others said did you check your water parameters before and after?

I also know a local importer that uses them for acclimatization in most of his tanks again with no complains.

I think the leaves may be contaminated with pyrethrin insecticide, which is lethal to fish even at low levels. Especially, the snail deaths make me suspect this. If it is the case (which would be hard to prove), filter carbon will remove the toxin from the water.

I'm just going to start over, rinse out the gravel and keep the female bettas in another 10 gallon by themselves. I did take a water sample fresh from the tank and the funny thing is that the PH was normal but there weren't any nitrates at all when I had it going for only 3 weeks. I'm going to monitor the tank levels for a while. There are the sole survivors that wil get pampered until I purchase another shoal. The plant that I am using is the dried leaves of a tropical almond "TERMINALIA CATAPPA" I've researched plenty and rinsed the leaves way before I added them so I dunno, hopefully less bad karma will follow my shoals.

I think it is possible that the leaves could be to blame, but indirectly. If I am correct in my assumption that snails are not tolerant of acidic water, then the affect that the leaves may have had on the water could have caused the demise of the apple snail and the resulting toxins from the decaying snail poisoned the Corys.

Just my thoughts.

Ian

Indian almond leaves can make the water quite acidic quickly, it's possible the ph dropped well below desirable levels for everything that perished.
How many leaves did you add and how large were they?

Whats the kH of the water?