Pepper Cory help!

[billy52bob5]

I need some help with my Pepper Cories

I have a 15g lightly planted tank which houses 5 zebra danios, 5 cherry barbs, 1 dwarf gourami, a bunch of small random snails, and until recently 3 pepper corys. the tank has been properly cycled. and all the fish have been in it for over a month

About a week ago one of the corys started acting weird. It would stay at the surface of the water all day pressed up against the glass. If i tried touching it it would attempt to swim down to the bottom but you could tell that was very difficult and it seemed like it would slowly float back to the surface if it stopped swimming. after a couple days of this I found it floating on the surface dead. during all of this my other two corys were acting fine.

But now a second cory is starting to do exactly the same thing and I have no idea what is causing it or how to stop it

I tested just before writing this and ammonia is 0, Nitrites are 0, Nitrates are around 20 and Ph is around 7.2 and water temp is 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I do about a 50% water change once a week.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[bunnyhunter42]

sounds like a swim bladder issue to me

[jpappy789]

Sounds like an internal issue ie. something wrong with its swim bladder. I personally am not the person to ask though when it comes to correcting the issue.

[Piranha86]

This sometimes helps with swim bladder stuff. Take some peas and put them through a garlic press and feed your cories the green goo.

[Chrisk-K]

I bet it's a swim bladder issue. You can try to feed peas but my cories don't eat peas. If they don't eat peas, treat them with Metronidazole, Paraguard or Maracyn Plus.

[pinkertd]

I'm thinking it's not a swim bladder issues, especially since the second cory turned up with the same thing. Swim bladder is not contagious. Other possibilities is.....they have not been getting enough to eat, you've had them a month and they may have had issues when you bought them, this is very, very common for pet store cories.

[billy52bob5]

thanks for all the advice everyone.

Since posting this thread I was given advice on my local aquarium forum that my temp might be to high and that dosing with excel might be causing harm. So I tried lowering the temp but that wasn't to successful and I also stopped using excel in that tank. I did notice some improvement but the cory still isn't back to normal so I will take Piranha86's advice and try feeding them peas as soon as I get some from my parents or grandparents gardens.

Thanks for all the help and advice.