Dying cories -- please help!

Hi guys,

1. I just noticed in my tank the skull of one of my sterbai cories!!! Clearly the shrimp made short work of him once he passed on. I haven't looked in my tank closely for two days (just had eye surgery), and then tonight I see this weird thing resting at the back at the bottom -- I just noticed it the way the plants were swaying -- it was the skull! I'm SAD! I just love my cories. I have no idea what killed him.. I thought they had been doing great with one exception (actually now two, see next two points).

2. Anyway, I've noticed one cory (a different one) has been acting strange, so I'd been keeping an eye on him.. he seems to spend all of his time at the top along the back of the glass. Is this normal? I've never noticed it with cories before.

3. I've noticed some white spots on a third cory that are maybe ICH? They are faintly salt like (with some interpretation) -- but it's hard to describe. What should I do? Where does ICH come from? Am I safe to just treat, and should I treat everyone? I know about upping temps, etc, and I can read more about treating it, I just need some opinions on if I should.

My plan was to add 2 more of these guys this weekend to take them up to 5. I don't know what is going on though -- are all of these problems related? I don't want to lose anymore.. as I say I just love them, and truth be told they were the first fish I've invested in a bit as they were $16 each -- so I won't be able to afford to keep them in a good school soon (though I plan on getting a few more, so long as I don't think I'm going to lose them.. I want to figure out what is going on).

As of two days ago everyone looked great, they were schooling together with my panda cory and the four of them would scuttle about the tank together and were eating voraciously (not afraid to fend off the tetras who have a real taste for the cories tablets).

Water parameters are great 0/0/0.2, pH stable at 7 and has been for weeks. There is a fair bit of green hair algae in the tank that I'm fighting (getting co2 injection system soon, which I'm hoping will help), but that shouldn't affect them, should it?

Oh one more thing I just remember, my temperature got a little warm briefly to 82, as soon as I noticed it (not more than 12 hours max) I dropped it back to 77-78 where I keep it. I have no idea what caused that spike, so I'm watching closely now in case my heater is on the fritz (I just had my filter die a couple weeks ago, so I wouldn't be surprised!) Could that have done something?

Ugh, sorry for the long message! Please help!


-zt.

Here are some pics

Sorry they're not great. Expert photographer I'm not... I really need to do some research into how to better take pics of my tank. Anyhow, that aside, I've got some showing the spots somewhat for one of the problems described above (and a pic of my panda, just cause -- he's got no spots). They're a little blurry, but maybe they're helpful (darn fish move, who knew ).

Thank you so much for any help you can offer!!

-zt.

Sorry to keep appending, I just want to add that I just noticed the spots tonight.. they were definitely not visible 2 days ago. The behaviour of the cory who hangs at the top has been for a few days now.

I also want to add that I've been watching them very closely together, and now the other sterbai cory (with the spots) is hanging out in the upper part of the tank with the other cory. I'm not sure if it's loneliness, or if he has the same problem as the other.

Hi Pinkertd,

Nothing is new, other than the cories from about a month ago. It's kind of hard to tell if they look sandish... I think perhaps slightly. Just the one has the spots, too.

Very strange.

I've lost two cories before in this tank.. an albino and a peppered. I didn't have them in a school though, so I thought it might have been loneliness (which is whhy I really want to buy more of these guys so it's a bigger school -- I'm getting rid of the odd tetras, too, so I'll just have two big schools of cories and black phantoms). I also heard that the cories need hiding spots to avoid the light during the day, so I really rearranged things about a month ago to make sure that these guys had better spots. And they seem to enjoy it.


Cheers,

Kim.

Thanks guys... I'm going to start upping the temp and read more about ICH. I'll keep you posted. The other sterbai might not be showing any spots, but I think he is sick, too... he's swimming vertical a lot. He still eats (as do all the cories).

I'll write more with an update! Please add any other suggestions!


Cheers,

-zt.