Cory not doing well...

[Watcher74]

I have a 10 gallon tank, set up about 3 1/2 months, FO, fake plants, etc., with one Betta and three cory julli.

The Cories have been in about 2 1/2 months. Cycle was done using filter squeezings from established tank.

0 Ammonia
0 Nitrite
<10 Nitrates

I have a bit of a brown algae problem, every week I change out about 50-75% of the water, take all the decorations out and scrub them down, and replace. No cleaning agents use, just water and elbow grease.

I feed 4-6 pellets of betta pellets daily. Half an algae wafer every other day.

One of the three Cories has lost his barbels. The area where the stubs are look fuzzy and white. His dorsal and tail fin look ragged, and he is not as energetic as the other two. Nor does he stay as close to them as the other two stay with each other.

The gravel is reused gravel from an older tank, that had three other cory julli's in them for over 9 months, and non of them had any barbel damage from it.

The two other cories look perfect in condition and temperment.

If it was just his barbels I would think it had contracted something. But that doesn't explain the apparently nipped dorsal and tail fins.

I have not noticed any aggresion among any of the fish in this tank.

Any clues, ideas for treatments, etc?

I have a QT/HT 10 gallon tank if I need to set it up.

HELP!! :confused:

[Holly9937]

I'm not very good with meds., but you could try some melafix, that seems to help out with fin repair. However, I did not have good luck using melafix with my betta, it seemed to make his fins look more ragged than they were before I started treating, so you might want to keep an eye on him if you decided to try that. Maybe you just got unlucky with one of them?!? Your water seems good and if everyone else seems healthy, I'm not sure what else could be going on!

[OrionGirl]

I'd try increasing water changes. Barbel erosion is common with poor water quality--and it's likely something other than the nitrates that are causing the problem. The same thing could easily be harming the fins and tails on the fish. Sometimes one fish is just more sensitive to something than the others.

[Emg]

I have a bit of a brown algae problem, every week I change out about 50-75% of the water, take all the decorations out and scrub them down, and replace. No cleaning agents use, just water and elbow grease.


Gee, seems to me she's changing the water enough....I think maybe he injured his barbles digging around in the gravel and developed a fungus thing from the injury. The nipped fins may be because if he's not feeling well and is a bit slower, the other fish notice and will sometimes pick on a fish in that condition...probably your betta...at night...when you're not around to see...sneaky little things !

I would put him in a quarenteen and treat him with an anti fungus med and a dose of stress coat and aquarium salt...and no gravel on the bottom. May help some. You could take some of the gravel from the tank he's in and put it in a nylon bag...so some of the good bacteria is there. I don't think he would need a whole 10 gallon size quarenteen though...if you have something smaller like a 2 gallon or so, it may be a bit easier to set up.

Good luck ! :)