jessicaspeigel

That’s great to hear! Yeah, I’m hoping for babies. I had a spawning pair of angels years ago and it’s so fun. I’m pretty sure I’ve got two females and three males which is a great ratio at least. Fingers crossed! Yeah, I’ll keep an eye on it. It’s very stable at least. I live in Seattle and our water out of the tap is so soft. Literally 1 drop of kh and gh reagent to turn colors. I have a bunch of rocks in my tank and kept an eye on it as it was cycling before I added fish and this is where it settled so I haven’t messed with it. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. When I was setting this tank up I grabbed ecocomplete because it’s my favorite but am regretting not doing a sand layer on top. Most of the food goes right through. I’ll pick up a couple feeding dishes. And snail traps. I just don’t like killing them but I read freezing is pretty humane at least. Gonna try all this, thank you!

Makes sense. After I realized I might be underfeeding, I couldn’t believe how I hadn’t seen it before. The other thing about the Cories is that, while adorable, they don’t seem super bright about noticing food. I have some hikari pellets but they never found them. I’ll try them again though and grab some super green and also start supplementing with blanched veggies. Thanks for the help. I was pretty sure it was the feeding, but wanted a gut check that there wasn’t something I was missing. The only other thing I could think of was that I was afraid to vacuum after the shrimplets showed up, so maybe the Cories, being hungry, were rooting around and found an ammonia pocket or something. It just seemed so weird that it was only affecting them and no one else.

I was feeding 2-3 times a week to try and control my snail population and after I realized that maybe the cories weren’t getting enough (after the last death about 3 weeks ago), I upped that to every day but less food. I feed frozen foods, daphnia, baby brine shrimp, cyclops. Depending on the size of the cube, I’m doing one over 2 or 3 days. I also feed the shrimp their little shrimp pellets but the fish try and eat those too. I need to add some veggies to the mix.

I think three or four months? I had cycled the tank with plants and added fish slowly when I saw plant growth and only nitrates. The Cories were the first ones I added. I do still have video and a photo of my first little guy to have issues. It happened really fast. I noticed he was having slight issues swimming (vid) but then within 4 hours, he was unable to remain upright, stuck on his side (see attached photo), corkscrew swimming. He died the next day. It was a similar story with the next one. The swim bladder issues were the only visible problem. No lethargy, eating well, no gasping, distended belly, clamped fins or any other injuries. That’s why I was wondering if maybe I was causing digestive issues with my feeding schedule. I’ve always worried far more about feeding too much than too little.

Hey friends, I’ve been struggling with a mystery disease that’s only affecting Cories. I’ve lost 3 over the last two months and the last death was 3 weeks ago. Everyone seems healthy now (attached a vid of the 5 cories left). My worry is that their school is really small now (went from 8 to 5), so I want to add some more but am hesitant until I’ve identified the issue. Background The tank is a 55g freshwater planted community tank with 5 false julii cories, 20 cardinal tetras, 4 otos, and a boatload of shrimps (amanos and cherries). The tank is about 6 months old. Params: Temp: 74.5 / Ammonia: 0 / Nitrite: 0 / Nitrate: 5 / pH: 7.2 / Gh: 80 / Kh: 120 / Chlorine: 0 The issue About a month ago, one of the cories had swim bladder issues. I tried feeding peas and an epsom salt bath but unfortunately I lost him. Fast forward to three weeks ago. I found one cory dead and another with his tail floating up. I’d been super sick for the last two days after a work trip, so I didn’t see if the one that passed had swimming issues, so that is an assumption on my part. I gave the one with swimming issues epsom salt dips over a day or two and it seemed to help a bit but I lost him. Is there something that would cause swim bladder issues in cories but none of the other fish? My water quality is unchanged and I’ve got masses of shrimp babies. Possible cause? I don’t overfeed but I’m curious if maybe the way I feed is causing problems. I only feed every 2-3 days to try and keep my snail population at bay and I’m wondering if it’s possible that because they’re hungry, they’re gorging and getting digestive issues. I fed on Thursday when I got home from my travel and had the death right after. Anyone have any ideas? I posted on Reddit and didn’t get any help. I changed my feeding habit to smaller amounts every day and everyone seems happy although I did have a gap between the first and second deaths as well. for some reason I can’t attach video, so here’s a Dropbox link.