PlanetCatfish.com

Tank is about 150liters of water, it houses 12 cw009 and 12 metae. A week or two ago I noticed the corydoras started to surface alot more than usual, measured what I could and found nothing out of the ordinairy except that ph was a tad bit on the low side compared to normal(slightly below 7 instead of slightly above), very low nitrates, no ammonia or nitrites.

A few days after the regular going to surface stuff began I found a bunch of the cw009 squished in behind the filter thought atleast 2 of them were dead the way they looked but when I poked them they panicked and swam away. Over the next few days every single one of the cw009 developed buyoancy issues, and it looks like some of their spines are starting to bend but that might just be because they can't swim properly, and became very lethargic and that's the way they still are.

They can look entirely dead and lay on their back for hours, rarely if ever see most of them move around looking for food or anything. Now the metae are beginning to show similiar behaviour(albeit to a much lower degree so far) starting to not being able to sit flat at the bottom etc.

Have tried fasting them for a few days, doing daily water changes, treating for bacterial infection(esha 200) but I am at a total loss as of what to do. Right now I mostly wait for them to finally give in it seems futile trying to save them. I have considered that it might be fish tbc but they don't show any of the other signs I can find, their colors still look normal, wounds etc.

I realize it might be hard to give any advice but if someone had the same thing going on or whatever any input is of value. I did consider moving the worst ones but had no cycled, empty, tank to put them in and don't want to risk contaminating my other fish.

Any ideas?

How long have you had this tank and is it possible something has changed with your water supply have you tried carbon filtration

Jeanne

Another thing to check would be water circulation. Coming to the surface could be a sign of poor oxygen levels at the bottom. Filter flow dropped off, power head stuck, reduced surface agitation would reduce the oxygen at the bottom. I don't know if low oxygen levels would cause your problem, but it is one more thing to consider.

sturiosoma wrote: ↑19 Nov 2022, 14:37 How long have you had this tank and is it possible something has changed with your water supply have you tried carbon filtration

Jeanne

No I only use spongefilters but I don't have any problems in my other tanks and I change water in them on same day. I guess it's possible that the water was contaminated with something during a water change but I doubt it.

ghyti wrote: ↑19 Nov 2022, 16:08 Another thing to check would be water circulation. Coming to the surface could be a sign of poor oxygen levels at the bottom. Filter flow dropped off, power head stuck, reduced surface agitation would reduce the oxygen at the bottom. I don't know if low oxygen levels would cause your problem, but it is one more thing to consider.

This was my first thought aswell but it's not a problem sadly, I tried adding another powerhead and it just made it worse since the fish then cant stay upright and just end up on their back repeatedly. They seem to be most relaxed/fine when only a spongefilter is present, although they always look dying/floating around sometimes standing at their tail. The weirdest thing is that if I do something in the tank etc they can move fast they are just very reluctant about doing so and most of the time they just lay cramped on their side or try to "swim" but all they can do is kinda move forward an inch or so at a time in a very weird manner.

couple more thoughts, have you changed anything in the tank recently, are you remembering to use dechlor after water changes, the change in ph was that after a water change and can you increase oxengenation

Jeanne

Nothing to dechlor in my water and I use same for all tanks and the rest got no problems, there is either some disease going on or there is something present in the tank that I can't measure for.

Appreciate all the input but I do know what I am doing, kinda, and have ruled out stuff like the most commonly tested things(ph, nitrate, gh, nitrite, ammonia etc). The temperature is fine and so is the circulation.

The only thing I can think of is that I combined the metae and cw009 like 1 month ago(trying to cut down on tanks to save electricity) and that there might be some bacteria present in on of the types that the others can't handle(they have all been healthy in separate community tanks prior to that), I don't know if that's far fetched and it wouldn't explain why they all get sick?

One more crazy thought I've heard cories can emit toxins ,and you have doubled up on the population do you have a hob you could fill with carbon, anything is worth a try

Jeanne

No I only use sponges but it might be worth a try, don't think it's the reason(I have actually seen that happen with corys in transportation and it looked different the gills of mine etc seem normal) but then again it can't be worse, tank is like a literal nightmare to look at, corys that cant handle a little flow, who can't sit on bottom, some laying on their back etc. Today the metae(who has been healthy/healthier up till now) has turned slightly darker and act like the cw009 did at onset of whatever it is.

One additional thing that I have noticed is that if I drop some food in, which I do very sparsely, the corys will surface for air repeatedly regardless of if they are eating or not, otherwise they really don't atleast not more than what I would consider normal.

I am considering just ripping the tank out in case there is something going on with the substrate or whatever and see if that helps but I feel like the move to buckets and back to tank would be the nail in the coffin for the fish even if I have very low hopes they will recover anyway.

Again thanks for all input.

If nothings wrong with the tanks water etc, it might just be that the spawning behavior just kicked in?
My school of C habrousus just started to "dance" up and down the glass and also in the water flow that the pump procedures. And usually when they are so active they need more oxygen so they tend to dart up to the surface more frequently now. and i would guess in all this excinment of spawning some my get stuck in strange places..

This is just a though out side the box...

Why rip out the tank if it was ok before you introduced Aequidens metae? could be that they show aggressive behavior against the corys during night time? the CW009 is more worth than Cichlid

/Tobias

Little update:

Moved the metae to a 54litre tank and the cw009 to a 20litre plastic tote like 10 days ago(shortly after I made the thread). Weirdly enough they almost overnight became much more active/normal(atleast the cw009), now 10 days later they can even swim normally/upright but still have problems sitting on the bottom, they eat normal and are actively looking for food.

Can't say I am all that optimistic still but going from not being able to move off their backs/looking dead all the time, not eating and bent spines to this in 10 days is an insane improvement, abit hard to see in the tote but looks like their backs are even going back to normal.

5 days after I moved them after seeing some improvement I started dozing with myaxin and the course ended today, seems to have done well something(but they kinda lit up directly after the move so hard to tell if it really has any further effect).

The metae? They are doing worse than the cw009, or atleast nog progressing as good towards being healthy. Don't know what's up with them, red gills/body color in general at times, looks slightly emanciated so considering treating for internal parasites aswell in a couple of weeks if they make it that long.

Don't know what to make of it but I do know something was seriously wrong in the tank, what? God knows thought of everything possible maybe just something in the tank(substrate for example) was contaminated somehow so threw pretty much everything out.

Never saw fish recover from even close to how the cw009 looked 10 days ago but might be a first time for everything I guess, knocks on wood. Still very confused as to what's going on, could it be possible that the metae simply have some bacteria present so they can't coexist? Didn't know that could even be a thing but it kinda makes sense(I guess).

Will try to move the cw009 into a new tank(sadly only small ones in 40litre range available) for easier inspection next weekend.

Anyway just had to write abit about it since nobody in my direct proximity really cares to listen

Hope you all have a nice weekend.

And it continues. Now it, whatever it is, has spread to another tank even though I tried my best to use separate tools etc. My Sterbai started acting just the same as the cw009 and metae used to do. Starting out laying lethargic and then going up for air more frequently, now mostly laying around having troubles staying upright.

The sterbai also kinda flick themselves against the substrate or maybe more like becoming spastic/darting around rapidly for some seconds at times(but far from regulary and not all of them) this is something I haven't seen the others do, can't see any physical signs/spots/whatever.

Really stumped. Starting to believe there might be something wrong with the water from tap but have called and asked and they say it's no changes(and the things I can measure looks normal).

The cw009 in their box are still recovring and look almost "normal"/healthy and I use the same water there so I suppose that's not the problem either. Feels like I have considered most things, even discarded food that was "newish" in case it's bad(and I didn't feed the Sterbai with it) somehow. Suppose it more or less have to be some type of disease but I can't get my head around it and why the cw009 just recovered while being moved into a small plastic box.

Ive had covid recently even startng to believe it might be fish-covid But also all other fish seems unaffected, never saw tetra/pleco/ram cichlid etc flick or act strange it's just the corydoras.