tetra

I tested the water today as I didn’t test the new water after doing the water change and the water change did absolutely nothing to the water parameters. The only parameters that changed were the KH and the PH. The Kh shot down to 0 and the ph shot up to 7.2 (it was previously 6.4 which is a big fluctuation in a 24 hour period) and I cut and pulled some more dead plant leaves out. And after doing so, a male cory started darting around the left side of the tank super fast, once it stopped it just sat there, fortunately the breathing look okay, just a little fast from the speed but that’s it. I don’t know if I scared him or what, but yesterday it happened as well, but this only happened after changing the water. Maybe is the tank developing Old tank syndrome or something? The nitrates were still at 50ppm and the ammonia was still 0.25 ppm (the same as yesterday) so all that work for nothing. And I also removed as much ammonia-causing material in the tank I could see. And I haven’t added any fertilizer for a couple of weeks. I forgot to mention, the tank temp is 64F

I tested the water this morning, just because I haven’t tested it in a month or 2. Parameters with the test strips (co op to be specific) Nitrate: 50ppm (a little high but not dangerous) Nitrite: 0 GH: 150ppm (my water is soft so probably the easy green doing something, but it has stayed consistent) KH: 40ppm (also a little higher than the tap) Ph: 6.4 Ammonia with liquid test kit: Ammonia: 0.25ppm-ish There has been a lot of decaying, dead leaves in the tank from some plants “melting” specifically the Amazon swords, and has probably led to partial amount of ammonia. So I did a 15-20 percent water change (which is a small water change but the volume is 75 gallons and those corydoras and their babies are the only ones in there) and added extra dechlorinator (about 2.5 capfuls of prime.) It hasn’t got a water change since early July of this year. I did clean the filter once every month or two. But after cleaning the pre filter sponge, wow was there a lot of poop and it turned the bag completely brown. Quickly after the water change, I saw a male flash then a female flash a few times. There is random days where they flash way more than usual and also swim fast (specifically a female that laid eggs before) with high speed. Which I saw was a symptom of flukes from a google search, and then the female would breathe fast for a second or two (probably from swimming so fast as I don’t see it struggling to breathe when swimming normally) the swimming with high speed only happens occasionally, probably once a week at most. These 2 symptoms also occurred while in the first day of quarantine but only with the female. She did it very often but doesn’t do it as much anymore. I also monitored their poop the only thing I’ve seen is brown ball-shape poops and that’s it, I haven’t seen any stringy white poop at all or other shapes of poop. If water quality isn’t probably the issue then it’s either the substrate irritating them, or some external parasite of some sort. I don’t want the new Cories to contract something cause it took extremely long for them to finally get back to health.

No rapid breathing near the surface, lethargy, spitting out food, appetite loss, weight loss, there was a long red line down the bottom half of a female but just a little, no outside of the gills are red, but the inside of the gills are red but I think that’s normal? But mostly occasional flashing. I can’t get a good photo of the red line on the female but I drew a line to show where it was at in the center of the grid. The red line was running horizontally through that section. And it’s not as red anymore though. I used praziquantel or paracleanse

This has been happening to my bronze Cory’s ever since I put them in their display tank. They weren’t doing this in quarantine from what I remember. They seem to be acting normal though other than just occasionally flashing here and there usually they flash on the sand or driftwood once a day (not all of them though) they look normal, too. The only odd behavior I’ve seen since was when I tried using @Colu’s fluke treatment just for a safety precaution if there was anything. But they still occasionally flash after 2 weeks of the treatment. So I think I’m gonna stop now. But during the treatment, one of the females (I think it’s a female cause it’s plumper and had a sunken belly after laying eggs a few months ago, it’s gotten less sunken now) started spinning in circles randomly after a male (I assume) chased her. I’ve never seen this behavior again after switching the food in the medicated slurry and adding garlic guard. I watched a video earlier on about flashing in fish, and he mentioned that fish usually flash to “interact with their surroundings” or give them selves a relief from a quick itch. And he also mentioned that it was only an issue if their flashing excessively which is not my case. The type of substrate they have is pool filter sand I got off Amazon. And the Corydoras usually sift the sand through their gills and when going up for air, some sand flys out of there gills and sometimes they may occasionally flash. Maybe it’s just the texture of the sand? I was gonna add some more cories from quarantine with them possibly next week or later. So I want to make sure nothing happens to the new ones if they are carrying something. No signs of ich or any other type of external parasite except flukes but they do occasionally breathe fast but on a full stomach of food or after swimming fast from another bronze cory (kind of like tag) and when they are scared. The tank is moderately/heavily planted ish and gets a water change every few months because the 5 bronze Cory’s are the only ones in there and I’ve never seen any high nitrates or ammonia or nitrite. And everything has been stable, so the only thing I do in there is feed them every now and then. They also had fry as well and the parents didn’t eat them. The tank is very under stocked at the moment. They enjoy swimming up and down the right glass panel of the tank also, all five of them. Should I be concerned? Or could I add the new cories with them?

Thanks for giving me some options, I actually managed to find a spot where I’m happy with, I stood it up like an arch but faced it diagonally, facing towards the right panel of the tank. Eventually will add Anubias to it. But before I found the perfect spot, I couldn’t find a spot for it because of how the tank was decorated, so that meant I had to rescape the tank. But after it was done I was pretty happy with it. The corys are happy too now because of the new hiding spots.

Recently, I bought some driftwood on Amazon and I got 2 pieces of driftwood, one looks average, and the other is a C-shaped piece, or an arch, I’m not a big fan of the look, even if it’s on its side, laid flat, upside-down, etc. Maybe could I flip it on a certain direction to make a look better? And add some moss? I let it float in the tank all night cause it didn’t sink after letting it boil. But right now it looks like it sunk down. But unfortunately landed on some dwarf sagittaria. I’ll fix it later, but for now, I don’t know if I want to use this piece.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get a video of them. But during this time, I bought some garlic guard and vita chem. I never really thought about nutrition until now. So a couple of days ago, I soaked vita chem in some Xtreme nano in hopes it would help. I didn’t add garlic guard cause it didn’t arrive yet until yesterday. But shortly after seeing them eat the food, they were pretty active, in fact, for 2 days they were active looking for food like Corydoras always do, I’ve never seen them so active before, and they only occasionally take breaks to sit down. The bronze with the black spot’s swimming has improved, and it was not as lethargic during those 2 days. Sadly the breathing problem didn’t go away in the bronze, but the peppers’ breathing has improved(one is still having a little bit of a problem breathing occasionally), I haven’t seen them struggle to go to the surface anymore, gasping for air, but they don’t necessarily do the short burst to the surface correctly, I’ll give them time though, as they are probably still healing. Today, I added 10 drops of vita chem into the food, next I added probably 1/5 of a cap of garlic guard into some Hikari sinking wafers, and let it soak for approximately 10 minutes, next, I dropped the food into the tank, and of course, they went after it, but not as much as I expected them to, but they still all went after it like it was feeding time. After feeding, the bronze with the black spot wasn’t as active as yesterday but not lethargic. It still looks around for food and swims around but it takes longer breaks. It’s still breathing heavy and fast, but that’s about it for the symptoms. I can definitely tell they’re getting better, but I’m not sure if there’s some gill parasite or infection that’s causing the breathing issues in the bronze cories, or if it’s just ammonia burn. And actually, last week, I noticed a strange red spot on the bronze with the black spot, I assumed it was ammonia burn, so I did a water change soon after (about 50%) I’ve been checking on that bronze and I don’t seem to notice the red spot anymore luckily. Unless I just don’t see it. For right now though, I’ve been doing 25-50% water changes every couple of days to remove ammonia and give the denitrifying bacteria time to grow.

Where I am looking, no dead spots at all, even behind the filter. The spot with the least flow is in the corner on the right in the back. That’s usually where they sit most of the time. And they all like to sit next to the cholla wood where there is shade. They do come out, but when they are sitting down, they are either sitting in the corner or next to the cholla wood. Or under an Indian almond leaf I put in there @nabokovfan87

Update: I finally finished the last week of treatment. Not much improvement since last week. The temperature starting dropping in the house so I plugged the heater in after I saw it was 64F which is too cold for the neons, I don’t know if the peppers and bronze are tolerant of that temperature. But I head the lowest temperature peppers can go down to is 68F. Lowest I’ve seen bronze go to is 70F-ish. I did eventually unplug the heater after the tank started getting a little too warm. Another neon died a couple days ago, it was the older one with a slightly bent spine. I think the paracleanse is too hard on them. Peppers are less active than last week, as well as the other 2 bronze. And the breathing seems to not have improved, so it’s not flukes. Something that’s strange is that I noticed that a piece of a neon’s gill plate is missing a while back, I don’t know if it’s genetic or if it has to do something with this. It hasn’t gotten worse over the past month. I do see most the neons are struggling to breathe but that’s about it. There is occasional flashing but not too much. I also couldn’t get a good picture of the neon as it keeps moving constantly

Update: I just finished the first week of treatment with paracleanse. So far, the remaining 2 peppers got a lot more active again but not too active. They do sit down occasionally but not for too long. The other 2 remaining bronze corys seem to have improved a bit. Before treatment though, for a month or so. I saw this weird black spot on the side of a bronze cory’s abdomen, the spot looked like it was inside the bronze, almost like I can see through its stomach, it still has a normal belly, no sunken parts on any of the fish. After treatment, the black spot disappeared completely, no where to be seen. I’m wondering if it was a internal parasite or a blockage of worms, something like that. Breathing is doing better, the bronze that had the black spot is still having a little bit of an issue breathing, but I can see it’s getting better. I can also see the bronze are getting a little more active again, but the black spot bronze usually sits in place, it has a bit of struggle swimming, maybe the possible worms caused a swim bladder issue. It is becoming more active though. Bad news, one neon tetra died. I found it laying upside-down under the cholla wood. It looked like it had died not long ago as it still had color. I did see that its mouth was open which I never saw before. I think it might just have been from the paracleanse, cause I don’t think they take medications too well. Some of the tetras are having some breathing issues and they’ve been having it for about a couple of weeks now. Even before treatment. I also did get a bacterial bloom from the paracleanse but I was expecting it so I added extra prime. But fortunately that’s all the bad news. I also think it’s worth mentioning that I have treated them for paracleanse before I started this topic, but I used the prevention treatment from co op instead of the actual treatment. So I think that’s why they didn’t show much effect from the treatment.

So I have bad news. Another cory died earlier, it was the pepper that was laying on its side. It hasn’t been eating anymore so when I scooped it out when it passed, it had a sunken belly. I decided to test the water and the Kh went down to 0 again, all the other parameters were still the same as above. Now I never tested for ammonia at the time, but since it passed, I thought it was a wise choice. I tested the tank water and it was 0.25 ppm ammonia with the liquid test kit. I never tested my tap water for ammonia ever so I decided to go ahead. And when I did, the tap water was 0.25 ppm ammonia, the same as the tank. I don’t know if I could treat with paracleanse now. I think this may be the reason why they are struggling so much, they may have gotten ammonia burn from all the over the past couple of months from water changes, and the ammonia brought the Kh down, fluctuating the parameters. Do I maybe use more prime when doing water changes?

Since right now I have paracleanse should I follow the instructions on the package or let it sit for a week like co op’s instructions @Colu I only have 3 packets of paracleanse left right now so I have to make it work until I could get more.

Yes, more of them got white spots a few days ago. But then all the spots disappeared a few days later. I finally got the Kh up now. It’s the same as the tap now, about 40ppm. All other water parameters are still the same as I mentioned last week. I also added another air stone yesterday, right now. The cories are not breathing as heavy or fast but the pepper that was laying on its side is still breathing rapidly. It got very little improvement from the air stone but it was enough that it could get back up and not be on its side or facing the surface. But it’s still very lethargic and could barley swim correctly, it almost looks like it has a swim bladder issue, something like that. It’s not swimming upside-down but it is crashing down to the bottom when ever it tries to get up from its spot.

I actually tested my tap water last week but I decided to test it again to be sure. Water out of the Tap: PH: 6.8 Nitrates: 0 Nitrites: 0 GH: 25PPM KH: 40PPM Tank Water: PH: 6.8 Nitrates: 10 Nitrites: 0 GH: 25PPM KH: 0 I’ve noticed that the Kh in the tap is higher than the tank water which is strange. But I think I may have a reason for this. A month or so ago I mentioned that, “It’s just I haven’t cleaned the filter in about a month in there so all the waste shot out and probably brought the Kh down.” And I still haven’t clean the filter. It’s not because I was being lazy, but because I was looking around earlier when I started the topic on how to kill epistylis. I saw that not cleaning the filter would increase the bacterial count causing excess bacteria and that excess bacteria will eat the same gram negative bacteria that the epistylis consumes. So that way the epistylis would slowly starve to death. So I didn’t clean the filter since 2 months ago. Now the reason because the Kh might of went down is because all of the excess waste in the filter building up from all the fish poop. Now, I’m actually running two filters, a sponge filter, and a hang on back (aqueon to be specific.) That hang on back’s cartridge was replaced with a coarse sponge from co op and I’ve been using it since then. The sponge filter is set to max flow, and I have pretty good surface agitation from the HOB and the sponge filter. No dead spots at all. I never changed the flow or added an air stone after seeing them breathe heavier or faster than normal, because I didn’t want to blow them around, I think that would stress them more as they can’t sit down for long before they start being blowed very slightly by the current of the water. I think gill damage from ammonia or nitrite poisoning can be a good reason for this. As they got left in the mail since 12PM I ended up grabbing them from the mailbox at 11PM. I never knew they were delivered cause the app told me that it wasn’t here and wasn’t gonna be here until tomorrow. Then, I checked again and the app said that it got delivered this morning at 12PM. I quickly got the package soon after that then saw they were breathing fast inside the bag. I ended up following the acclimation instructions from Aquahuna to get them use to the water. The peppers and bronze corys were in separate bags and I poured them in the same bucket and their water mixed, I barely just noticed I did that and I got a slight panic cause I thought I may could have just caused shock, but they didn’t react, so I just continued the process and put them in. The pepper’s spots were raised and of different sized. There weren’t many spots but it was enough to notice it wasn’t ich.

I did notice a few days after I got them that they had a bit of discoloration in their gills (specifically the bronze cause the peppers are naturally gray so I couldn’t notice anything off.) It almost looked grayish. Right now, I tried my best to get a look at the gills of the a bronze cory and it did look a little reddish gray. The outside of the gills looked grayer than what would be called normal. A pepper also passed yesterday. I found it laying on its side with some white spots on it. The spots have progressed a bit, but not significantly. I found another pepper laying on its side earlier but it got back up just like the one that passed. It also has white spots on it, not much though. @nabokovfan87 I haven’t used salt since @Colu told me to stop dosing medication. So nothing has been in the water.

I think I may be dealing with fin rot as I saw that the ripped fins got worse. No Redding around the edge of the fins. I haven’t been seeing any bulling so it could be fin rot. I also saw that some of the white spots disappeared even without meds. There is still some white spots but a majority of it disappeared. I did see earlier that a pepper was laying on its side breathing heavy and fast. Only saw a couple of spots on it. I soon got up after, a few hours later I saw it again laying on its side, breathing fast again. It also got back up again, but it still continues to breathe fast I’m not sure if it’s normal, but these white spots that look like the epistylis, have been on the cholla wood since I got them I’m pretty sure, and they haven’t went away. They are different sizes and some spots look rougher than others. I couldn’t get a good picture of the ripped fins but I got the white spot photos. There is only a few white spots left, there was a ton yesterday, but I guess it died off.

Update: One of the peppers seem to not be doing well. I saw it breathing heavier than everyone else and started just laying on top of the prefilter sponge it only does this for a short moment then comes back down. It still gasp for air at the surface, and all the other corys do to, but this one does it way more often. This could be a possible reason, but I think the reason they are breathing fast is because of one thing, soap. I’ve always done this, but I wash my hands with dish soap before putting my hands in the tank. I do that with all the tanks but never saw breathing problems. But sometimes when doing water changes in the tank, I sometimes see some soap residue on my hands. So I go wash the residue off with water. When I go back, I still see residue after putting my hands in the water, I don’t know if it’s because I rub my hands together to make sure it’s gone but the perfume turns into soap. I’m not sure, I haven’t done enough research about this enough. But I saw that dish soap removes (most or all) the oxygen out of the water. (I’m assuming this is used to kill the bacteria on the dishes.) So, I used a new soap and then put a glove on for safety precautions. And after a water change a few hours later, I saw that most of the corys stopped breathing fast. (There was still a neon tetra and a pepper breathing a little faster but I’m assuming they are recovering from what could have possibly been soap.) Could I have poisoned them? Though I doubt it, cause they would have all been dead most likely, though I’m not sure. But after a few days with no meds, I saw some more white spots come back on some of the peppers and one bronze. I don’t know what it’s gonna take to kill this stuff, it just keeps coming back. But for the most part, no mortality not much breathing heavy or fast except for a pepper and the neon. I’ve been feeding them pellets, wafers, and bug bites. Soon, I’m gonna feed them frozen mysis shrimp. Still ragged fins, though it’s not getting worse. Not too much chlorine in the tap, it’s 0.8 on the strip.

Update: so far, all white spots have been eradicated (I forgot to mention that there was a couple of spots still left on the peppers but not much after.) The bronze corys still have some ripped fins, it’s not red around the edges but it hasn’t gotten worse. So far no high mortality anymore, but a few days ago on Saturday, the cory that may have had a seizure passed. A couple days before, I knew it wasn’t gonna make it seeing how it could move properly or go up for air anymore. The tank was heavily aerated, but it was still breathing fast and sometimes upside down. I thought it may have been a swim bladder issue because of the way it was moving, but I’m not 100% sure why. Over the last week, I fed them frozen mysis shrimp and frozen bloodworms. Day 1 I fed them mysis. Day 2 I fed them blood worms. Day 3 I fasted them because of the amount of protein they were getting. Day 4 fed them mysis. Day 5 I fasted them again. Day 6 I fasted them again. Day 7 I fasted them once again. (I think I may have fed them on day 5 but not sure. Also note that I didn’t do water changes during this time. I did a 50% water change a few hours ago to remove the ich-x in there.) Peppers weren’t doing too good after this. They just start floating up still, but first the front of their body lifts up then the back lifts up slightly then they swim away. They continue to keep doing this and it’s really bothering me. They started breathing heavier and faster but I think it may have been because the airline tubing came out of the sponge filter and didn’t give much water flow after. I fixed it earlier but they continue to still do the symptoms above. The good news is that the bronze corys’ eyes went back to normal and no signs of what may have been popeye showed. Could the symptoms of the peppers be because of all the medications? Though I don’t think that’s a good question being that they’ve been doing that since I got them.

So it seems the pink spots on their heads had disappeared. But I still took a picture anyway, they were incredibly difficult to take of picture of without the camera not focusing or the caudal fins vanishing and you could still barely see them (the caudal fins) The bronze cory that was laying on its side tried desperately to get up when I dropped food in the tank. It just barely got up but when it did I saw it was breathing rapidly even though there is plenty of surface agitation (I don’t feel like it’s safe to add more agitation as the tetras cannot handle the current very well. They’re not being blown around but don’t look the most comfortable at times.) It also had a bit of white spots on it (probably from laying down being vulnerable.) And nearly all the fish in the tank have some ragged and partially ripped fins including the neon tetras. It’s mostly on the bronze corys but the peppers don’t seem to have this issue though the pectoral fins on one of them looks a lot skinnier than the one on the other side. They were not spitting out food when I fed them 20 minutes ago. No seeing much hanging out at the surface except for a pepper that usually goes up there for breathe but swims along the top side ways fast than swims back down. Sometimes the bronze corys swim rapidly across the tank but not too much. And all the neons are relatively plump except for one of the older ones that is 2 years old but it’s almost always looked like that. I’m not underfeeding but I do occasionally fast them. All the corys are not super plump but aren’t skinny. The stomach is about flat at the bottom just a bit. The bronze in the picture below has gotten a lot more pale, too.

I followed exactly as you said shortly after and so far they haven’t been flashing and the white spots disappeared (though there could be some spots that I didn’t see) but unfortunately before I dosed the kanaplex and salt yesterday, 2 neon tetras died. Another died earlier but it didn’t look like anything was wrong with it at all. I just found it dead inside a bio ring. Usually they can get themselves out of there and the tetra didn’t look stuck. I’m not sure if it got an over dose of medication even though I only put 2 scoops of kanaplex. (I think it’s worth mentioning that I filled the tank back up so now the volume is 10 gallons so there was no over dose of medication.) I’m not sure if it’s coloration or not but all the neons have a small pink spot right above their head. But it never looked like it had affected them as I had them in there for 2 months now. The bronze cory and 2 neons that died have died in the same 2-3 hour period which is extremely rapid deaths. The bronze cory that looked like it had a seizure is laying on its side again and has been there for 2 hours now but it’s still breathing but heavy. The peppers seem to not stay still when they rest from swimming around the front of them just lifts up and they either start swimming again or they start just drifting or staying still in a corner floating (not belly up just facing the glass mid way to the surface.) I remember hearing about giving fish too much medications can damage their kidneys. But I’m not sure if this is the case.

So far the Corydoras and now the neon tetras are not looking so good now. I think I have a reason why now. During the treatment, when I added salt, I did 1tbs per 2 gallons of water. After seeing no improvement, I moved on to 1tbs per 1 gallon of water. Now I still didn’t see improvement, so I decided to take the risk of doing 1tbs per 0.7 gallons of water (because of the tank being drained half way, I decided to put 7tbs of salt in there) after a day or two, the corys looked almost epistylis-free. But then a day after they just got smothered in white spots again (specifically 1 or 2 of them had been smothered. The others had white spots again, just not as much) so this “epistylis” is really adaptable to harsh conditions. (Note that I was still feeding the medicated food at the time, and it was doing nothing.) So after you said to dose kanaplex in the tank. I followed the directions, I first did a 10% water change and added 2tbs of salt and then one dose of kanaplex. I think I misunderstood the directions a little bit cause I think it told me to dose kanaplex AFTER one hour of the water change. I realized that when a few of the corys started breathing fast and looked stressed out. Today, I added another scoop of kanaplex into the tank. But then an hour later or so the corys and neons were acting strange, so I did a water change and filled up the tank 75% all the way. Then I saw a bronze laying on its side in the corner breathing fast. I thought I might have scared it cause when I saw doing the water change, the prefilter sponge on the Hob that was turned off fell off the intake tube and I tried to line it up on the glass so I could pull it out, but I dropped it and the bronze was sitting there and it kinda just softly landed on it, then zoomed out of there and started laying in the corner breathing fast on its side. Not too long after the water change, I saw the cory that was laying on its side, just sitting in the tank, then all of a sudden it starts freaking out and flying everywhere and then landed on its side breathing fast. It almost looked like a seizure. A neon tetra that was in there started floating at the top and started twirling around and breathing fast. Some of the other neon tetras were breathing fast, too. And before the water change I saw the one at the surface laying on its side under the cholla wood. I’m assuming that I may have over dosed the medication and it was way too harsh for them to tolerate. The good thing is that it eliminated 99% of the white spots. But there is one white spot left on a peppered cory. I’m assuming it might spread and get worse by the next day. I also forgot to mention that 2 of the bronze corys’ eyes were bulging out (both of them) so I assumed it was popeye. But I saw kanaplex could treat popeye, so I didn’t change anything. And that bronze cory that had a black smudge on its caudal fin passed away a few hours ago, but something I didn’t realize was that when I fished it out, it had been dead for a while. The reason why was after I did a water change, the cory went on the side of the cholla wood and stood there, it didn’t move for hours so I thought it might of died. And when I did move it, it was dead standing up. I swore I saw it breathing, but it was already too late. So it seems that this “epistylis” is extremely adaptable and very tolerant of these medications. Even something stronger than the 1tbs per 1 gallon of water wasn’t strong enough to kill it. So day by day, this situation looks as if it’s getting better, but then just pops back up again and wreaks havoc. So far right now the neon tetra is not doing so good, it’s laying on its side breathing heavy.

Do I still keep/use the salt while I’m dosing the kanaplex @Colu

Update: I have good news and bad news. The good news is that they have stopped breathing fast, and that is pretty much it. There was improvement before, but then it just got worse again. The bad news is that they are still going to the surface and just sit there breathing. It doesn’t look heavy or fast when I look at their gills. I’m starting to question if they have an injury or they just don’t know how to do short burst to the surface. They are occasionally flashing here and there but it isn’t excessive. I saw a little bit of buildup of “epistylis” on a couple of the pepper and bronzes pectoral fins. The medicated food hasn’t helped much really. I even added erythromycin to their food and it helped a bit but didn’t do much after a bit. But I attempted to treat with salt. And salt has been the most effective treatment right now. I would do salt baths, 1tbs per 0.5ish gallons of water and once they floated belly up or started drifting, I would put them back in the tank immediately. They would breathe fast for some time but after an hour or so I would see most of the white spots would disappear. But the next day, they would just get some white spots back. I did this for about 5-6 days I think. But after seeing the spots would come back, I decided to treat the tank with salt so the source would be killed. So I added 1tbs per 2 gallons of water after I drained 50% of the tank and just left the sponge filter running in their. Didn’t see much improvement next morning, so the following day, I did 1tbs per 1 gallon of water. It helped more, but it didn’t go away 100% another following day, I added an extra 2 table spoons and dissolved it partially in a measuring cup and poured it in. Next day, I saw they looked a little better, more white spots were gone, but this stuff is extremely stubborn. I think it got acclimated to the concentration of salt from the salt baths and is now extremely resistant of death from salt. I forgot to mention that during these salt baths, during the 4th salt bath. When a bronze cory was starting to float belly up I was trying to fish it out. But since it’s a round Home Depot bucket there was a slight gap in between the bucket and the rim of the net and when I was trying to get the bronze in the net, it got in between the rim and the bucket and repeatedly hit its head multiple times on the bucket (not too aggressively) so I placed it back in the water. I thought I may have caused an injury cause a day after putting it in the tank, im not sure if it’s the right cory, but the next morning I saw the bronze with black thing on its caudal fin and it was a bit ripped up. I tested the water yesterday when I added the most recent treatment of the salt. Everything was the same, the ph is 7.2 or 7.4, the nitrate is 10, the nitrite is 0, the GH is 25, the Kh is 0 (I know it’s low but it hasn’t effected them much even after raising the Kh and ph. So I just decided to keep it stable instead of chasing the Kh since I didn’t want to stress them more than they already are with this “epistylis”.) I’m still feeding the medicated food, it just hasn’t done much at all. I’m starting to question if it even is epistylis or a rarer disease that looks similar to it. Note: The tank is still drained 50%

I just did a water change about 30 minutes ago so the temperature dropped 1-2F. I usually do colder water changes but I do my best to keep the temperature the same. But right now it’s at 72-73F but usually sits at 74F once it warms up. Yes, I have used paracleanse and expel p on them. No improvement after, but they stopped getting skinny. So I’m not sure what happened. I have started feeding them a lot now because I’ve been using medicated food. They still seem to eat it even though I don’t use garlic guard. I didn’t use Seachem focus either. I accidentally forgot to dose ich-x in the kanaplex-medicated food, but I dosed it in the water column. A night before, I also dosed kanaplex in the main tank just so when they or if they improve, I feed them the medicated food as some of them were not eating. The weirdest behavior I’ve seen is the bronze corys drifting mid water column and sometimes the peppers sit at the surface face-first at the surface breathing heavy. Their fins were rotting away a bit and had this white stuff on the end. I’m not sure if it’s the epistylis or fungus. The good news is they are improving though, but not too much. But I have seen the fins getting better, less breathing heavy though a lot of them still are a bit, white spots going away more and more, less going to the surface, and no more deaths (unfortunately, I did lose 4 corys, 2 bronze, 2 peppered.) but over I seen a bit of improvement. (Note: the bronze corys are still drifting in the water column.) haven’t tested the water for a couple days, so I did a water change cause I saw the peppers gasping at the surface. And the tank clouded a day after I added the kanaplex. I also placed the sponge filter in the middle of the tank, so I can try to get less dead spots in the tank as I only had one right now, and a aqueon hob filter also placed in the center.

Thanks, I did a 1/3 water change and dosed ich-x. Unfortunately I saw a bronze cory laying on its side covered in white spots this morning when before I turned the lights on. It was still breathing but a little faster. An hour after the water change I saw the bronze that was laying down had an extremely sunken belly. Almost like it didn’t have a stomach at all. Even though I fed them 2 days ago. I’ve went a week without feeding them once and I haven’t seen it this bad before. I tried feeding the bronze, but it didn’t get up it just sat there until I gave it a little push with a net. Eventually it got back up but it was lethargic and it wasn’t eating. I don’t think the bronze is gonna make it tomorrow if it doesn’t eat. The remaining 5 peppers are mostly staying at the surface gasping for air. Some of the bronze ones are also going up there just not as much.