cories losing barbels?

Aww, that really sucks. I'm sorry for your loss, cories are so awesome it must be hard to lose them.

As I understand, there is no real hard and fast relationship between deterioration of barbels and choice of substrate. Cories have been kept quite successfully in some really jagged stuff, with no damage to their cute little whiskers. From reading about other people's experiences, and from my own, I have come to the conclusion that water quality is usually the culprit when things go awry with cory barbels. So perhaps the lack of maintenance recently is to blame, afterall, though it seems odd to me that it would set in so quickly... how heavily stocked is the tank, and how long had it been since the last water change?

On the upside, this is the perfect chance to try and train your boyfriend to do all your tank work for you! Maybe if you make him do it for you more often now while you're incapacitated, it'll be come habit for him, and he'll just keep on doing it long after you've recovered! :joke:

If you have had to be lax on maint and water changes, nitrates are probably way up and this may be the culprit.

Far too much plant life to have nitrates. All parameters proper. All other fish in absolutely perfect health.

Onyx sand does indeed appear to be very rough to the touch.

Other corys who lived in the 5.5g tank which went just as long without maintenance are more than happy, and have big Fumanchu moustaches.

My theory is that the Onyx sand damages barbels, but that a secondary bacterial infection is causing the complications.