PlanetCatfish.com

I'm asking about the same problem on two other forums, so I'll try to include everything that's been discussed/considered so far.

Last night I looked in on my 20 gallon and one of my pgymy cories was swimming around very quickly and erratically (circles, spirals, upside down, sidways, etc). She's also breathing really hard (probably from all the swimming). She looks a little fat, but I put in an algae waffer two nights ago so she could just be full. Other than that, she looks physically fine and all the other fish in the tank are fine.

I isolated her in a 1qt container with a little aquarium salt and an air stone to get her through the night and I'm about to set up a better hospital tank. This morning she's been staying on the bottom and falling over on her side or back and spinning around almost like she's having seizures. It also looks like her right side is paralyzed because that's the side that she keeps falling to and the fin on that side isn't really moving.

Stats:
20 gallon tank
5 pygmy cories - 3/4" - 1"
2 emerald cats - 2"
1 oto - 1 1/4"
25ish black mystery snalis - 1/4"
30ish african cichlid fry - 1/4" - 1/2"

Ammoia - 0
NitrIte - 0
NitrAte - 15 (planned on doing a water change today)
pH - 8 (a little high, but stable)
temp - 79*
25% water changes every 1 - 1 1/2 weeks depending on the nitrAte level (I keep it below 20)

I've had her & the other 4 pygmy cories since April so it's likely not a case of starting out with a sick fish/poor care at the LFS.

Nothing in the tank could have fallen on her and the heater isn't broken.

The plumpness seems more like a full belly after a meal type of plump rather than fluid filled like dropsy.

I'm on a city well so I don't use dechlorinator. I do have copper pipes, but I always let the water run before filling the tanks. Plus, I'd think that if there was something like heavy metals in the water, the fry would be affected as well because they're so young. But I will try to get a test for at least copper sometime this week.

The african cichlid fry completely ignore the cories and even if they wanted to mess with them, they're so small, they couldn't do anything more than nip their fins.

And I don't know if it will help any, but here's a video. The 1st part is from last night and the 2nd is this morning.

http://cmsu2.cmsu.edu/~tmg68650/coryseizures.mpg (2.3M)

-Chelle

Oops, I just saw the questionaire.

1. Water parameters
a) Temerature range. 78 - 80
b) pH. 8.0 and stable
c) GH 250
d) KH 250
e)Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite, leavels. 0, 15, 0
f) Water change frequency. 25% every 1 - 1 1/2 weeks or whatever keeps the nitrAtes below 20
(Most LFS's will check your water and give a list of readings).

2. Tank set up
a) Size. 20 gallon
b) Substrate. sand
c) Filtration. Whipser 20 and Cascade 150
d) Furnishings. stacked up clay bricks
e) Other tank mates. see list in previous post
f) How long has it been set-up? 6 months - before that, everything was set up on a 10 gallon for 7 months (the 10 gallon leaked so I upgraded)

3. Symptoms / Problem description
see previous post

4. Action taken (if any)
isolated cory

5. Medications used (if any)
just added a little bit of aquarium salt. Approx 1/8 tsp for 1qt.

-Chelle

Are all four pygmaeus the same size, I ask because this species are prone to being spawn bound and if the other three are the same size they are likely to be females, which means that you really need some males to coax the females into spawning. Also the temperature is a little on the warm side, a reduction to around 70º - 72º F would be far better for them. Moving a stressed Cory can also add to further the stress.

I would change at least 30% of the water, lower the temperature and forget about using salt, in fact I would make daily water changes for a week to weaken the salt content right down. Normally pygmaeus are tough little critters.

Ian

They where all the same size when I got them and as they've gown 3 are now a little bigger than the other 2 so I'm guessing the 3 (including this one) are females and the other 2 are males.

Since my first post, I've set up a 4 gallon hospital tank (actually a bucket, but all I use it for is quarantine & hospital). And I already put in a small heater and increased the temperature to around 86* which seems to have helped a lot. She's much calmer now spending more time resting and is still doing some swimming, but not nearly as frantically and non-stop as before. And I didn't add any more salt so there's only about 1/8 tsp in 4 gallons of water which is pretty minimal.

Really, the more I think about it, the more it seems like she had a stroke (as crazy as that may sound). I think if it where something in the water, there would be more than just one fish affected especially considering I have snails and young fry in the tank.

-Chelle

She has improved greatly since I moved her to the 4 gallon. She's very calm and if I put the net by her she swims away almost like normal except that side is still paralyzed so she still leans. But she has much better control when swimming than she had last night or this morning.

-Chelle

sorry she is sick
I did not know fish could have a "stoke" (ie brain bleeding)
I thought fish which swim on one side was some kind of "swim bladder" problem - a bit like us haveing a balance problem.
but I know nothing really and have not kept this species. I have some other corys and occasionally they have a going nutty session, and charge around, but then it wears off -I though it was one of the things corys do!
same as shooting to the surface for air or having a flicking of the side of the face on the ground for a few minutes.
I have male and female julii and I can tell the sex more by behaviour than size cos they display and the two males show off and flutter together to boast who is best. fun to watch.
hope she gets better soon

After a couple more days in the hospital tank I moved her to an isolation box in the main tank. After a couple days in there, she was doing a lot better so I released her back into the tank. She was doing really good at keeping herself upright and only occasionally rolled/flipped when swimming. Now, about 2 weeks later, she's swimming completely normal again.

-Chelle