Odd Duck

Typically animals with genetic microphthalmia (smaller than normal eyes) will have a notably smaller socket and may have remnant, abnormal eye still present. Genetic anophthalmia (no eye at all) will sometimes have a slightly pinched look where the eye should have been. They won’t have any empty looking socket because socket development needs the globe of the eye being present and developing at the same time to cause the socket to form. If you’ve ever seen blind cave fish (Astyanax mexicanus - a species of fish that evolved in a cave system in Mexico and lost the need for eyes), they sometimes have a little dark area under the skin where their eye should have been - to me it looks like a touch of residual retina that never proceeded to develop correctly. They sometimes have that slightly pinched or just a “not smooth” look to the skin surface where the eye should have been. They never have a hollow socket that I’ve ever seen. The socket just doesn’t develop into a hollow if there’s no globe to fill it. There are other eyeless or blind cave fish but that’s the one I’m most familiar with. I don’t know enough about the others to say anything. Your cories are having eye issues, like popeye, or someone is taking their eyes. Popeye would be very hard to notice in a crowd of such tiny, sometimes secretive cories. There’s no way in the world I could identify each of my pygmy cories, let alone tell you if one had popeye and was hiding because of it. I can’t even count mine accurately. I have at least 8, could be twice that. Planted tank and fast little buggers that dodge in and out of the dense Anubias in their tank. The food tends to go right into the Anubias forest because it goes in at the back of the tank since it’s a cube with the near solid glass lid and the only gap is at the HOB overflow. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Could there be a genetic component that is causing them to have eye problems? Yes. But empty sockets means there’s some sort of issue or somebody’s being bad.

I would catch him and put him into the container. Worth risking the stress of netting to keep him closer to the surface. It will be less stress in the long run. If it’s a colander water will flow through fine. Try for a colander with holes, not slots - he might try to wiggle through a slot and could get stuck or hurt himself. A sieve with open enough mesh will let water flow through. If it’s a solid plastic container I would find a way to punch holes in it or cut larger holes that are filled with filter sponge. You could put it so a small corner of the filter overflow falls into it and goes out the holes. Just a very small bit of the overflow stream or it will buffet him around in the container. Or you might be able to divert a small bit of the overflow into the container through a filter sponge. Did your filter come with any kind of prefilter sponge or sponge piece that you could adapt to baffle the flow? Pic of containers I was lucky enough to find that fits across my 10 gallon tank. I didn’t have to cut holes but you can do the same thing with a thin walled plastic disposable container. You can cut a piece of styrofoam to sit under the rim of the container to make it float. You might even try a sink sponge caddy but you would have to select it very carefully since they tend to have large enough holes that might tempt a betta to try to breakout. This one is a bad example to actually use, but you get the idea. It would need to be new so it doesn’t have any chemical contamination.

Frozen Daphnia sinks if you can get it. Freeze dried will sink eventually if you crush it slightly in water but he may not take it if crushed. Live Daphnia are the most attractive to them but he may not have energy for that now. Do you have a plastic container that has a significant rolled rim? Like a disposable Glad or Ziplock container? Sometimes those float decent for a while but will need air put under their rims at least twice daily. Or you could use a colander or sieve that you attach to the rim of the tank somehow? Run an airline (or even a string) between the slots on the colander and shut the lid on the line or tie it to a weight on the outside of the tank. Anything to serve as a temporary support to get him closer to the surface and into better aerated water. They sometimes do better if they can take some gulps of air. They don’t have to, but it can help if they feel the need to breathe that they’re closer to the surface since it can sap their energy to swim all the way up. Those males are dragging around a lot of finnage and it’s very physically taxing on the body as well as metabolically taxing to support that finnage. Plus if you can get him closer to the surface he might be more inclined to eat the freeze dried Daphnia. Don’t feed him live Daphnia in a sieve. If they escape before he can eat them it would just be frustrating for him.

A single dose of No Planaria caused a complete wipeout of the MTS’s in one of my pea puffer tanks and secondary loss of half the puffers. Also killed the single horned Nerite that I missed seeing and removing before using No Planaria in another tank with pea puffers (didn’t kill any of the puffers). I had read multiple anecdotal reports of MTS being OK. Not in my experience.

Oh, and Echinodorus vesuvius, Vesuvius sword. Its very tightly twisty leaves can make a very cool effect. Like fine leaved, miniature Vallisneria contorta - the twistiest species. Takes less maintenance than stems but more than Anubias. It will need runners intermittently guided into place, pushed down into the substrate, or trimmed away as needed. Very brief upkeep if done weekly, a couple minutes or less each week.

I’m so sorry your betta isn’t doing well. I thought the 2 ppm you posted might have been a typo when you meant to post 20 ppm for nitrates. I just don’t know of a test that reads that low. Most are only accurate to 5 ppm. I was only seeking clarity, not saying that’s too low. No such thing as too low for fish, only for plants. Do you have any kind of floating breeder box or net that you can use to get him closer to the surface? Can you add an airstone?

Yep. Pretty silly! I guess they picked him for his chiseled jaw. 😝 I shouldn’t judge on looks but he gave the impression of maybe not being too smart. Maybe it was just his extra dorky “moves” flopping around those worn out, or maybe oil-less, forks.

There’s a guy that clearly isn’t fully comfortable on a motorcycle but is trying to make it look like he is. 😆 And those front shocks look absolutely floppy.

It would help if I spelled consistently correctly, too. Autocorrupt always wants to correct it to Anubis instead of Anubias. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Going to correct mine, now.

There are some very strange things that can happen with various pigments and skin / scale structures. The article @Fish Folk linked is remarkable and the pigment change seems very counterintuitive to me, but I’m certainly not an expert. Birds have many examples of pigment and pattern changes, most having to do with the transition from immature to adult plumage. But cockatiels have a particular pattern called “pearl’ where the centers of the feathers are very light to white. This mostly (but not always) a sex-linked pattern with most males eventually growing out of this pattern. But, some males will retain the pattern for a few years, some for many years, and some for life. I don’t begin to understand how that can happen but likely some very complex genetic interaction is happening but I know it does because my males were among those that kept the pearl pattern for several years, but it eventually disappeared. I have read enough about bristlenose plecos to firmly believe that there are at least 2 different loci for albinism that will “cancel” each other when crossbred and the offspring will revert to brown. When bred back to either albino the offspring will be roughly 50% albino and 50% brown. Clearly some of angel coloration is scales and likely some subdermal pigments. Exactly what those pigments are in this case, I don’t know but it appears to be some form of melanin? Very strange to me that the fish in the article got darker with less light since we typically see more pigment develop in stronger light. Clearly there is something else happening there.

I got tagged but it looks like you’ve already gotten some great suggestions. Bristlenoses are considered primarily herbivorous but nudging toward omnivorous. They will eat angelfish eggs (ask me how I know) and do appreciate some meatier foods. Variety is key and feeding foods high in pigment precursors seems to help them color up along with appropriate general husbandry. @Guppysnail raises some of the nicest fish I’ve ever seen. If you want to pick one person’s advice, that’s where I’d go. She spelled it out for you.

Definitely get the heat up to 80 for this kiddo. What is in your filter? Is it cartridges that you change or have you swapped out for long term biomedia like sponge or ceramic? How do you get a 2 ppm reading for nitrates? I’m not familiar with any test that reads that low. Did you mean 20? How are you cleaning the tank? Do you have anything added to the tank for him to rest on? A tunnel or higher / taller plants than from your original pic? How much water do you change and how often?

Have you tried skipping feeding for 1 to 2 days to see what happens? That would be the first thing to do if he’s otherwise acting normal. If that doesn’t resolve the issue, or if it gets worse at any time, then I would try feeding Daphnia and see if that “clears him out”. Their “shells” are enough roughage to potentially help move things through if it’s a digestive issue. If that doesn’t work, then an Epsom salt soak might be next as the next step in trying to resolve potential constipation. Try the fasting first and try for better pics to get us more information while we wait to see what fasting does. And please get us more information about your water parameters - ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, hardness (GH, KH), temperature, filtration, how long your tank has been set up, is it planted, and anything else you can think of that might be relevant. The more information we have, the smarter advice we can give.

Moving bettas can start interfish aggression even if they’ve been fine previously. For instance, it’s very rare that people can remove one female from a sorority for treatment, then be able to put her back in the sorority successfully, even if they were clutch mates and together for months and months before the separation. I read about that type of problem regularly on betta pages / forums. That may, or may not, have been the issue with your bettas. The others, hard to tell since they both had previous issues. If your girls survive, I would keep them together even if one seems ready to go back in the tank before the other. You may still get aggression with a move, but if both survive, you might get lucky and achieve a reset going back in the tank. It’s pretty much impossible to predict which you might get - reset or fighting, because, . . . bettas. As far as “cleaning” disease out of the tank, you could try adding a big dose of peroxide, but I wouldn’t add more than 3 mls per gallon. Turn off all filters / pumps until you have still water. Measure your peroxide carefully and pour it over plants and substrate (it will sink to the substrate), try to avoid any remaining live animals, and leave it for 10 minutes. Pull out any hardscape you can and treat separately. You could also pull out all live animals, drain the tank as low as possible, and spray peroxide over everything until saturated, and leave it for 10 minutes, then rinse with dechlor water, drain again, and refill the tank. Draining makes the peroxide more concentrated on whatever it touches compared to mixing it in the water. Spraying on everything WOULD kill any snails, shrimp, etc, that were left in the tank compared to the carefully measured amount of peroxide put into water. There’s no guarantee it will work to eliminate disease, but it’s about the only thing you can do that would be plant safe. Short of reverse respiration on the entire tank. Obviously all fish, snails, and shrimp would need to be removed for reverse respiration treatment and you could run the risk of a significant hit to your biofiltration with reverse respiration since it would knock out a lot of the bacteria that coats the substrate, plants, hardscape, glass, etc. Honestly, I would treat the girls with Maracyn-2 in food if possible, and keep them separate for at least 1 month even if they look fantastic in a couple days or a week, keep watching. Don’t put them back in until they’ve been fully healthy for a full month. I would just monitor the tank and let it ride for at least a full month. Blind feed if you need to maintain the BB’s. If you can’t monitor the pleco well in the tank, move it to a tank where you can monitor better.

Sometimes whining does help, gets it out of your system. 😉 Cabin fever is definitely frustrating. My hubby gets it after about 20 minutes. 😆 I’m such a bookworm and homebody it would probably take me 20 days. 😆 🤣 I had the offending wood bits fully submerged under bricks for a few months at first, then once moved to the tank, fastened to rocks for about a year all together. Cut the zip ties (surely they’re water logged now?) and up they went. They are now fastened to slate. The next time I had wood that didn’t sink when I was ready for it to be sunk, I went straight to fastening it to slate. Plus I needed those pieces to stand upright to get the effect I wanted. I’m now a big fan of fastening to slate unless the wood sinks fast and I only want it to lay down. Otherwise slate, a concrete / masonry drill bit, a pilot hole, and stainless steel wood screws are my best friend. 😝 You’re in DFW, right? If you want, hubby and I can help you attach it to slate. I even have slate we can use.

Good list. Keep in mind that Crypt parva is tiny and grows pretty slow. You’ll want a lot of it if you want it to cover much area with any density. Crypt lucens is another nice small one but it’s pretty much identical color and shape as parva, just a bigger version. Anubias nana ‘Golden’ is another good one for a different color and stays small enough for a shallow tank. Java fern ‘Needle Leaf’ has a small enough scale to be very nice in a smaller tank but will get full height of your tank and even bend over a bit at the top. My 3 G shrimp tank is Anubias nana ‘Petite’ and Java ‘Needle Leaf’. Java fern is a bit overgrown in this pic. I’ve got Crypt jacobsenii ‘Pink’ and A. nana ‘Petite’ in my 2 G shrimp only. Not very pink for me with a not fancy light and no CO2, but still a nice plant and a nice size for me so far but I’m pretty sure it can get bigger for others. That’s a couple years growth of C. parva at the front in the 2 G.

Wood can be very frustrating. I’ve had wood float after having it in water over a year. I have this story documented in my 100 G nanofish tank link. If wood doesn’t sink within a month now, I just screw it down to slate. I’m over that whole “destroy my plantings and need to redo it” nonsense.

Even though rice fish are small, they’re active enough I would rather see them in a 10 gallon or even a 20 long. They’re busy fish. Not as busy as guppies, but busy enough. I’ve not kept them in years but I also think of them as being a touch flighty, so a little extra room for hiding spots or more plants would also be really good for them. Something that gets tall enough to get to the surface or a good clump of floating plants with good roots - frogbit, dwarf water lettuce, or stems that like to float like pearlweed, water wisteria, guppy grass, etc, is helpful for them. Hopefully somebody will chime in with more recent experience with them.

Rice fish are quite active and probably not well suited for a 3.5 gallon. A single betta is borderline and 5 gallons is better for bettas and more easily kept stable. A 3.5 gallon can be tough to keep stable - my 3 gallon shrimp only tank just crashed last week and as far as I can tell killed all the shrimp I had in there. And I have nearly 50 years of aquarium experience although much less time with shrimp. Don’t set yourself up for failure by trying to keep very active species of fish in a tiny, nano tank. It will likely be far more frustrating than it’s worth. Shrimp would be a better bet with small, weekly water changes.

I don’t put tissue culture cups in the refrigerator. If the gel is sitting down and behaving nicely (didn’t get jumbled in shipping), they just sit on my window ledge until I plant them. They are not in full sun, they only get a touch of morning sun and I make sure they don’t get overheated. I’ve got a couple that have been on my window sill for a couple weeks, now. That won’t work for every tissue culture. Some will get too overgrown and crowded in the cup, some will get dried out if they’re not sealed well enough. If they get too hot, it’s bad, but they shouldn’t be kept too cold, either. Your refrigerator might be too cold. What’s your temp at in your fridge? Most are recommended to be set at 40’F. That’s not really the best for aquatic plants that are usually at ideal in mid to low 70’s (most are ideal slightly cooler than our tropical fish). Definitely not in the 40’s.

Even though Ich can be bad, it’s usually easier to treat than Epistylus. It sounds like it’s already responding well, which is great. Don’t let your guard down yet since it can go through boom and bust phases. I’m crazy vigilant for at least 30 days after an episode. Nothing moves out of quarantine for at least 30 days after looking completely healthy. I once moved fish too soon and got Ich in my 100 gallon nanofish tank. Temp up and light salt for 14 days, then I ran the UV sterilizer for 60 days because I was paranoid. Lesions were gone in 5 days, but I did NOT want to give it another chance at going through that tank. I never saw it on anybody but a few ember tetras, but yikes! There was no way I was going to be able to catch fish out of there to go into a hospital tank!

The only thing I was really worried about was significant pH change from the seltzer if there were a ton of treated plants going into a tiny tank, or excess chlorine from a ton of plants dragging heavily chlorinated, shocked water going into a tiny tank. I’m paranoid about giving some blanket recommendations without knowing more details. I also usually just shake the plants off, or quick rinse to clear debris if I’m treating algae.

Tap water is fine, but a quick rinse in dechlorinated water after that would never be wrong. Especially if you had a lot of plants going into a very small tank and excessive levels of chlorine in your tap water. It shouldn’t cause an issue, but if your tap absolutely reeks of chlorine, then better safe than sorry.

That study on salt tolerance in cories was pretty poor as there were significant other stress factors, like the lack of filtration, that make the study pretty worthless. I’ve had no issues using low dose salt for cories or plants (1 tablespoon per 5 gallons) and it can reduce osmotic stress on the fish. Even low dose salt appears to have at least a bit of detrimental effect on Ich, but is not likely to be enough to clear it. Cories should be able to tolerate 82’F for several weeks, somewhat dependent on species. Most should be able to tolerate up to 86’F for the 10 days or so it takes to clear Ich. The biggest risk is, it could be one of the species of Epistylus, which prefer warmer temps. Posting some pics, as closeup and as sharply focused as possible, will help determine if it’s Ich or Epistylus. With Ich the fish look sprinkled with salt. With Epistylus, the spots are usually slightly irregular in size and shape, and tend to be more raised. Epistylus will NOT improve with only raising the temp and may even get worse. Epistylus species are best treated with Ich-X or an equivalent. Ich can be treated with higher temp. A UV filter can help with either by helping clear the vulnerable stages of the organisms out of the water faster.

If no changes, then I would monitor at this stage. May only be scarring by now. Should have seen at least a tiny difference if it was going to respond to Ich-X. Monitor close and keep us posted. Oh, and take a pic every other day or so. That way you can have a comparison. Sometimes we don’t notice slow, subtle changes when we look at them every day, but gradual changes will be more obvious when we scan across multiple pictures at the same time.