losing panda corys

E

etspam

AC Members
Feb 11, 2007
81
1
8
I have a 20 gallan tank, currently with 5 red tailed rasboras, 6 gold white cloud minnows, and 1 panda cory left. When I first started, I had 6 rasboras and 3 panda corys, one of which died after two days, another after a week. The third panda cory was happy and going for over a month. Thinking it needed company, I got another 2 panda corys, along with a gold algae eater to get rid of brown algae. This was probably three weeks ago. The minnows I got about one-two weeks ago. 1-2 weeks ago, I noticed the top portion of the tail was missing on one of the new panda corys. Wasn't sure why, but thought it might be the algae eater, and noticed it was chasing the pandas away from food (algae wafers). That panda cory died four days ago, and I got rid of the algae eater. My other newer panda cory, which seemed healthy and active, turned up dead yesterday, for no apparent reason. And I just noticed that the top portion of my biggest/oldest panda cory seems to be missing. It doesn't look like fin rot, at least according to all the descriptions I've read and the few pictures I've seen, but I don't have a reason why the top part appears to be missing now, since I got rid of the algae eater. I know it was good a week ago, but haven't been paying that much attention to it the last couple of days, due to the loss of the others. One rasboras died due to some big growth, all other fish look fine. Anyone have any ideas?

Current (and typical) tank stats are 0 ammonia, 20-40 nitrates, 7.8 ph, and 75 degree temps. This is my best guesstimate, since it's hard to distinguish those color charts. I do 20% water change every week, treated with amquel+ and novaqua+.
 
What are your nitrites? The reason I ask is because it sounds like you have just established your tank. Nitrites tend to spike in newly established aquariums and are very toxic to fish. How did you cycle? It could be "new tank syndrome."

From what I have read, some species of cories are not as hardy as others. Also, they can be sensitive to water chemistry.
 
Nitrites are 0. The tank has been completely cycled for at least two months, and random nitrite checking has always been 0. I don't do it weekly though.

I've read that some corys are harder to keep alive, but I thought in general they were fairly hardy fish. I'm wondering if I should dose with Melafix or something? I like my panda cory, and don't want him to die.
 
sometimes it just depends on the cories - i bought some very small bronze ones a while back and they all died. one the second day, another the thrid day. . . etc until they were all gone. then i spent the extra money on getting some larger almost fully grown ones, and they have thrived. younger cories overall seem to be much more fragile.
 
^^ Yes that is true and it is true for almost any fish. Juveniles tend to be less hardy than their adult counterparts. Cories are quite hardy once they reach adulthood, but the juveniles can die off quickly.
 
This is only an idea, which hopefully someone who's more knowledgeable can either confirm or deny:

As I understand, scaleless fish are sensitive to osmotic pressure. The treatments, aquamel and novaqua, are adding to that osmotic pressure. Also as I understand, a treatment such as aquamel is best treated as an emergency treatment rather than a routine one. If cories are sensitive to these things, and juvenile cories are even more sensitive, then perhaps that's a part of your problem. Also, are you salting the water? It seems that cories are very sensitive to salt.
 
I'm not salting the water - is that something done normally? I treat with amquel to neutralize the chlorine/chloramine in the tapwater, and the novaqua, simply because I got it free with the amquel. I didn't think it would harm the fish. Isn't it important to neutralize the ammonia and chlorine in tapwater? I don't want to stress my fish out any more than I have to.
 
Yeah, you definitely have to neutralize the tap water additives, such as the chlorine. Ammonia, however, should be neutralized by the bacteria in the tank, as long as your tank is cycled and not over crowded. According to what I've read, you should avoid using chemical neutralizers unless it's urgent, because it's just adding to osmotic pressures. Of course, I'm sure there are many people who uses neutralizers with no ill effects, so YMMV.

I don't know much about those two products, but it looks like you'd be fine with just one or the other. Maybe try sticking to just one and seeing if anything changes? I found this thread discussing novaqua, and in one case it had an ill effect on someone's angels, because it was dangerously reducing the Ph levels: http://www.angelfish.net/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=1034

Lots of other people have used it successfully for years. I also found this site that discusses amquel in some detail: http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/Amquel.html

As that second site says, neutralizing your ammonia with a conditioner may make it appear that your tank is cycled and balanced when it really isn't. And an unbalanced tank can cause a lot of problems. Like I said, it's just an idea. The water conditioners are a big part of your tank chemistry, so I think it's worth looking into whether they could be contributing to any problems.

Oh, and regarding salt -- apparently a lot of people advocate lightly salting tropical tanks, for your tank's health. *shrug* Most fish should be fine without it, as far as I know, especially your cories!
 
Thanks for the links for amquel/novaqua, I might try not using novaqua for a while. I know that amquel neutralizes but doesn't remove the ammonia, but from what I've read, amquel will not give false negatives with ammonia. If anything, it might give false positives. I wasn't doing much in the way of water changes when I was trying to get the tank to cycle, and eventually did see the normal ammonia spike, then nitrite spike, then 0 for both, which indicates the tank cycled. Ammonia/nitrites have been 0 ever since, and I always test the water before I do water changes/vacuuming.

I wasn't quite sure about what it meant for ph buffering though - does this mean without novaqua, the ph would be higher? It's already at 7.8 or so. I'm not sure what ph my tap water is at, will have to leave a cup overnight and test it.
 
What kind of substrate do you have? How often do you do water changes and gravel vacs? And what were you feeding them?

I have had my Pandas for around 8 months. Some of them I had only had about 5 or 6 months, because I couldn't find them for awhile. I recently lost about 4 of mine over the course of a month. I had fallen behind on water changes and only did them every 2 weeks (where I had been doing them every week), so my theory is that the nitrates got too high for them. Either that, or the mulm in my substrate built up and caused barbel infections (their barbels were eroded a bit) and that killed them. Whatever it was, I've started doing weekly water changes no matter what now and I'm changing the substrate over, to something I know won't affect their barbels.

If your nitrates truly are around 40ppm, then I'd try to do more frequent water changes. I know the cards are hard to read though (I have the AP master kit and its hard to read sometimes).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom