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Wondering if you can help me with my peppered corycat. One of his gills are really swollen and I think he might be on death’s door. He’s not eating. He can’t surface anymore and he’s flopping sideways in the tank. I moved him from my 20 gallon into a 3.5 gallon Tupperware container that I float on top of the 20 gallon. For the past 5 days I’ve been treating him with Kanaplex but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything for him. My tank parameters were good before I took him out. The tank has been cycled. The PH goes between 7 to 7.5. Ammonia 0, nitrites 0 and nitrates between 0 – 0.5 ppm (the lowest setting on the API Freshwater master test kit). I run an upflow algae scrubber to keep the nitrates low.

I’ve attached some pictures but they might not be too helpful. Just you can see from the top the difference between one gill which is normal and the other which is really swollen. I don’t know if it’s a bacteria that Kanaplex can’t take care of, or it’s fungal or it’s a parasite.

If you could recommend a course of treatment I’d really appreciate it.

Hi asquirrel,

Sorry about your cory. I'm not great with fish diseases, but there is at least one photo on internet of a fish with everted gill cover and the picture says they have parasites (flukes in that case, but I don't know if that's the only possible explanation).

If I were you, I'd try a Google search for "gill parasites" and see I find anything similar, and whether a specific med is better for one parasite or another.

If the fish dies before you can treat it (or after), I'd recommend you dissect off the gill cover and look for parasites with a magnifying glass. If you find them, then you'll have to watch the rest of the tank. Other fish might be infected too.

Good luck,
Eric

Thanks Eric. I just checked on him after a few hours and he was tipped on his side. I flipped him back over and he seems okay. I got to try something though and was thinking maybe it is parasites. I think I'm going to try API General Cure and see if that helps. Either that or PraziPro, although I'm leaning more towards buying the GC since it treats a broader range of parasitic infections.