corycat death.....questions :(

x3ro

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Jan 20, 2009
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Was watching the fishies in my tank this afternoon on my lunch break before I took my puppy for a walk...

Upon closer inspection, I noticed one of my bandit cories laying on it's side, dead :(

When I took him out of the tank, I didn't notice anything obviously wrong with him. No sunken belly, no ripped fins, no obvious signs of why he died. There's no telling when he died either. My cories like to stay towards the back of the tank in the decorations, for whatever reason. The only thing I noticed on this particular cory was that his barbels were gone. I know they use them to smell food, but when I bought this guy, his barbels were gone (i bought him before I knew a lot about cories)... My other 5 cories seem just fine.

I didn't have time to check water parameters, but none of the other fish in my tank (8 silvertip tetra, 8 glowlight tetra, 3 bronze cories, 2 bandit cories (was 3 before this one died), 1 bristlenose pleco, and 2 bolivian rams) look like they're having any issues.

Could he just have up and died for no real reason or what? :o
 
Params are a must, please post asap.

What size tank is this?

Yea I know, I was already running late at lunch and just didn't have time. I'll get them as soon as I get home.

The tank is about 56 gallons. Like I said, no other fish looked like they were stressed or having any other problems. I'm running two AC70's.
 
how long have you had this particular cory and what was the approximate age of it when you bought it?
 
Not sure on either honestly.. I've had it for oh... a least 4 or 5 months now. Dunno the age when I bought it. A couple of them were small, and a couple of them were larger. They're all the same size now, so I dont know if it was one of the younger ones that died or what.
 
well at that short a time of having it in your tank i would rule out old age as a factor.
 
its possible he was low man on the totem pole even if you didn't see aggression in the tank. maybe he just didn't get quite enough food due to the more dominant fish eating most of it and the fact that he didn't have any barbels to help him find food? (i have read that cories can and will eat without their barbels but it's not as easy for them).

maybe he had internal problems that you wouldn't have known about (no outward signs) and it just took this long for those problems to contribute to his demise?
 
He may have been out eaten without his barbels by all the others. Do not rule out age especially if they were bought full size in the local fish store. I have purchased cories direct from the source overseas and lost some within a year. Cories have a long life but when conditions change just like us stress etc. knocks off a few years. It may have just been his time. IT HAPPENS.
 
Thanks guys.

I checked my params. Everything is fine.

0 ammonia
0 nitrite
40 nitrate (doing a water change tonight)
7.6ph
 
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