xXInkedPhoenixX

Ah, yes I think our fish go translucent pretty quickly after death so that can sometimes lead to us thinking the signs of death are something else.

oh and @Chlo, if you see the red blotches on more than just the gill area of the remaining corycats, that's where I'd be concerned it was red blotch, most of the images I see are on not just on the front half but back as well and they are SUPER red. Because your cory has the redness concentrated mostly to the gill area- leads me to believe it's more about water than anything else.

Just keep an eye on them. Keep the water clean, if it's ammonia that's the best treatment. As @lefty o pointed out, make sure the water is conditioned so chlorine can also be ruled out- but you did use Prime so not thinking that was a factor.

Well, I don't keep Corys so I'm no expert on red blotch- though my little bit of research it doesn't seem like a super common thing, others can correct me on that (as there are many super cory keepers here). HOWEVER I did experience an issue with ammonia burn with my Otocinclus catfish and the area your Corys are red are around the gill areas just like my Oto was so leads me to believe that was the issue. Red blotch appeared to effect the sides of the fish but again, I'm not an expert I could be wrong. Only the cories are having the issue?

We all make mistakes @Chlo the vast majority of us are not here to judge just to help diagnose what might be going on. As I said, google search images of red blotch and ammonia poisoning. See which might look more applicable for you. The fin rot and death makes me think it is/was water quality related or ph swings, or too hot of water (for a cory) but it really could be other things. Your water looks good now, just keep it super clean. If it's ammonia poisoning that's all you can do and that in turn helps fin rot (and adding aquarium salt to the tank could help both). If it's red blotch you need an anti-bacterial med that has something like tetracycline in it- that won't help anything if it's ammonia related.

If you have an HOB you can put some crushed coral in it. It won't be an instant fix but it is a more stable one than adding chemicals or other solutions to the tank. (I don't have an HOB so I put crushed coral on top of my substrate next to the sponge filter)

Would be good to know your water parameters? Compare pictures of that with ammonia poisoning. The fin rot and redness to me reads poor water quality. Here is a website I found describing Red Blotch with possible med treatments. https://be.chewy.com/red-blotch-disease-in-corydoras-catfish/

Yeah that I'm not at all surprised about. The neons are pretty but it makes me appreciate my Harlequins so much more since while they tend to sporadically chase each other I've never seen them be outright agressive to each other or the other creatures in the tank- but for the tiny baby otos they've eaten but hey, moving food I can't fault them.

Looks great! Hard to believe one dead thing can cause such chaos, wasn't there also an instance of overfeeding? You can have my black neons 😂, they're kinda jerks so I'm thinking they probably could hold their own with other big fish. I affectionately call them murder fish since they picked off a few of their own when I first got them.

@MollyMomma personally I've used my waste water no matter what was in it (and I've treated Ich) on my container garden to no ill effects.

Spider plant is an option as it's not toxic to cats. I have a monster spider plant (it's in a pot approx 5 gallons) outside I'd give you a million babies if you were my neighbor lol, I've rooted them in water to start for people but I've never kept one in water for extended period of time. Lucky bamboo though, is toxic to cats.

I'm super bummed for you, what a terrible thing to come back to after what was supposed to be a nice get-away. I'm sure you want to know exacty what happened. You don't happen to have any Poly-filter do you? The reason I ask is I usually put a small square in my tanks and whatever toxins it absorbs it changes an appropriate color. This would help you trouble shoot what it could have been. There apparently have been some instances where it turns a color that's not usual and the company may be able to help ID what it could have been. My pieces usually turn dark brown, which is the indicator for harmful organics (cause ya know, everybody peed in the pool). I know you've already probably changed a lot of water, but it's a handy tool as far as I'm concerned, I always have some.

Ok, I for some reason always thought it was clever marketing for the public television during their donation telethons to have "membership levels". Depending on the level one chooses should be some sort of swag, maybe up to members only jackets! 😆 I'm kidding there (sorta), but a tshirt, mug, something that's exclusively designed for members would be cool. I can't imagine you weren't already thinking of things like that.

Have you tried wayfair? They seem to have several options that are out of the ordinary of what I have seen on pet websites. Overstock has some too.

All the convincing arguments FOR "pest" snails and in the end I had decided I still didn't want them in my new tank. Don't get me wrong I'm pro snail, just not pro snail in my tank I can't control breeding from. (I don't even kill outside snails). Originally I got them as hitchhikers and though I quarantined the plant apparently they were laying in wait. I battled them for weeks, diligently removing them. THEN a few days ago I caught a swimming black worm. I didn't even bother researching it- don't know what it was. I put my Black Neons in a quarantine container, pulled my plants and bleach dipped them, dumped the plant that brought them in in the first place, and dumped ALL the substrate. Started all over. The tank looks relatively the same, just deeper plant substrate now and less glass (cause that's all I had left). Took me most of an afternoon. Try, try again.

Hi fishy friends just putting in an update since I haven't for a bit. So my first 2 generations of baby Otos have been coming along very nicely in the grow out tank. I've had no casualties to speak of there. They are so pretty to watch in the evenings or early mornings when they all surf the sides of the tank. Mid days they all kind of hide out- seeing only a half dozen or so move across the tank from time to time. I bought some plants attached to rocks for their bare bottom tank and have been regretting it because eventhough I dipped them, I now have detrius worms floating all over that tank- I've been battling them since I put the plants in there with no end in sight despite daily water changes. 😐 All of that and the plants died anyway. I gave the seller a bad review, that was a fun back and forth- first saying I dipped them too long if they all died but if I indeed did that then the worms should have also died yeah? Anyway, I don't like giving a bad review but the only warning was about potential snails....that aside... It should only be about another month before I can take both Gen1 and Gen2 to the LFS to trade them. Most of Gen1 is ready at about an inch but since they are now mixed I figure I'll just do it all at once. I have 6 of Gen3 left in a floating breeder (lost one unfortunately to unknown circumstances, looked beautifully healthy- hope it's not because of the detrius worms). The 6 of them (hopefully they all survive) will be going to a friend. I think the parent tank is taking a break from breeding. I'm guessing a combination of my disruption/redesign of their tank (no hitchhikers from the plants there- purchased from a different vendor) (which messed with water parameters that I'm still monitoring) AND I'm going to bet the tank temperature has something to do with it, as since we're going into hotter weather my A/C is on and instead of the balmy 77-78 degrees we are back in that time of year where it is 74-76 degrees. This is a hunch. I guess we'll see. No good pictures of the kids but I'll post a pic of the parent tank, you will see a marked difference- I've had a good amount of plant growth in just a couple of weeks which I'm very pleased with.

Hi Jeannie, welcome to the forum. Don't lose heart. When I started my 20 gallon tank, I ran it for a month before adding fish, also with FritzZyme. To be honest I couldn't tell you if it ever cycled but my water tests were good. I added my Harlequins AND my first Otos into my tank. Everything seemed to be going ok for the first few days then I started losing Otos. I lost all but 1 of my first batch, the LFS I got them from made it seem like it was all my fault (said I needed a heater, I was running low tech, and in the end it wasn't because I'm not running a heater). All of my Harlequins were fine. Then I got an Ich outbreak- likely caused by the dying Otos. I treated that- everybody still lived. Things evened out. I eventually got more Otos, quarantined, treated for Ich TOO, they all lived. Now I have a tank that's super happy, and my Otos breed, baffling me entirely. In the end I believe the Otos I got, as wildcaught otos very often can, died because they weren't fed or treated properly before they got to me- and though I did hours and hours of research and kinda knew that it didn't stop me from feeling bad and thinking I did something wrong. Alternate scenario. Later I started a 2nd 20 gallon, this time everything was right, even had an old filter to immediately cycle the tank from the tank above. I put a half dozen Black Neon Tetras in the tank. I found one dead the next day. What did I do?! I thought maybe I should have started with more since they're more comfortable and maybe they died of stress. Then I found another one dead. So I went back to the store and got more- because that was still my logic- there was nothing visually wrong with the dead or the live ones and otherwise acted normal. Well in the end after I added more to the tank more did die- and you know what? I finally discovered (because the little brats were doing it at night) were killing EACH OTHER. Apparently they offed everybody they didn't like because now I've been holding steady at 10 for a good while now- however I still see them picking on each other more than I'd like them to. Lesson? Maybe you are NOT doing anything at all wrong. The danios yes create ammonia but probably not a lot to be able to read on any tests because that's a decent sized tank (and what little ammonia they are producing could already be, being absorbed in the cycle, you don't want to see ammonia reading anyway really). Just keep going. Your tetra? I'm thinking something similar to my situation with my tetras. Maybe it was getting bullied, or maybe it just tried to hide and got stuck- accidently killed themselves. It does happen. It's disheartening- but we learn stuff from our mistakes- IF they even ARE mistakes. As a famous fish once said, "Just keep swimming" 🙂

@Gideyon yeah there really isn't much of a selection but they have the basics at least, java, swords, anubias. I can get the fancier plants from my other vendor. @GanonDwarf2 well that's the other option, lol, (pea puffer) I thought about that for a fat minute and would love to have one, but I really really really don't want anymore tanks. (shocking I know).

Most of the small snails start out like a speck of dirt so I don't think you'll ever spot the eggs so it will be an ongoing issue unless someone else here has experience. As I said most people I think give up and let them stay or do what I'm doing. The only non squishing way without endangering your other tank inhabitants is to trap them with food (like the romaine trick I've been told about). Personally, all my plants now get a 1:20 bleach to water solution dip- but people also swear by an alum dip (Aquarium Co-Op has a video on plant dipping- with Irene). I also found a seller that guarantees no snails- so from this point forward I only either buy from them, or buy the Top Fin plants they sell at the big chain pet stores- I've never had an issue with those.

I am hoping, like you it isn't, I had a fish with dropsy, in fact the one I use for my profile, my betta Kimono, no idea how he got it and though he got a little better with treatment he didn't make it. He was swollen on both sides but one more than the other and you could see (just barely) that all the scales on the main part of his body where "pineconing" meaning raised. Take a look at the fish from the top and see if it's just that side. My HOPE for you is that it's just an after effect of breeding/having babies and maybe in a day or three it'll be gone or less swollen at least. If there's no change it's a possibility. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Come up with a plan for treatment now just in case you have to.

Hi GanonDwarf, welcome to the forum. You will find there are a lot of people here that are very much in the pro-snail camp. I am in the pro-snail camp of the snails I can control breeding- like nerites and mystery snails. I've decided that for ME- eventhough I asked fellow forum members to convince me- not really into bladder, pond or prolific breeder snails. I also had some hitchhikers and have been doing DAILY culling (no other way to put it but daily squishing- I'm really not enjoying that part). You can also put a piece of romaine in the tank and apparently they gravitate towards it and you can remove that as they gather. You can also get yourself an Assasin snail who hunts and eats them. Now I know you said you're not fond of snails so that may not be an option but if they get ouf of control that's my plan- maybe you can ask your local fish store if you can "borrow" one, meaning buy it and return it to the store (not likely to get your money back). Honestly I thought it more humane to squish them than to have an assasin snail kill them- but that's just me. I have been putting some of them in my algae ridden bird bath, but I have nowhere else for them to go. Good luck.

BABIES!!!!!!!😍

One of my snails sits that way often, I worry about her sometimes but she seems to do fine and is my oldest and largest snail. My other female has a crack in her shell that seems healed and to be honest I'm not sure where she got it as I've had her since she was little and her shell was beautiful then. Mystery snail shells also get flaws when moved from tank to tank when there's a change in water parameters, one breeder on youtube doesn't like to move them for that reason alone.

I agree with @Isaac M, I was thinking about adding one to my new aquarium and potentially moving one of my 3 Mystery Snails and while "they" say it's unlikely it CAN happen. I like my Mytery Snails too much to risk them.

I had a 5 gallon that was running pre-pandemic. I started my 20H in Sept 2020, baby Otos appeared in March 2021. I too, started with an HOB and now run a sponge and an air driven corner filter. This month decided to do a complete overhaul so it no longer looks like the original tank design. I have an unknown number of Otos running about.