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I call to order the first meeting of the new Panda Cory Appreciation Society. You don’t have to own corys to be part of the group, they don’t necessarily have to be Pandas, and this is just for fun so always look on the bright side of life like our dear Pandas do! Pandas are the gateway fish! Here’s my wife an avowed hater of aquariums creating videos for TikTok behind my back!

I have had this tank for a couple years now. Have randomly put in plants and deco over time. The wood piece is nice but it just didn’t look right where it was at. I also wanted to increase the amount of hiding spots smaller animals could go, like shrimp. So, I came up with this. Still a work in progress, aren’t they all. I took 2” PVC and cut a small section in half, sanded the edges so it wouldn’t damage any fins and created hideouts for the smaller ones. Also, took some rocks in the back yard and built up an area for the lava rock, creating another hiding spot. I do have shrimp in the tank but they are using the heater suction cups as hiding spots. As they get bigger,🤞, I wanted them to have other areas to go. For plants, in the back are Amazon sword, pogostemon stellatus octopus, water sprite and moneywort. The rest are Java ferns, Anubias barteri and a couple crypts that I hope will take hold. PS—trying to add photos but it keeps putting them upside down🤔

Three of my 5 orange Venezuelan corydoras have been doing this all day for several days. Is this what they call glass surfing? Is it normal? The corner they swim in is the one next to the HOB filter outlet and closest to the air stone. It's a 29 gallon tank. Tested today: Ammonia 0 PPM. Nitrite 0 PPM. Nitrate 10 PPM. pH 7.4. Temp 76.8. Smooth gravel substrate. Other fish are 1 honey gourami and about 12 green neon tetras. I read recently that a shoal of cores should have at least 6 fish. Should I get another?

Hi everyone! We finally got the go ahead from the LFS to add some fish. Unfortunately, they were out of two of the three we wanted (and the shrimp). SO, we decided to go slow and be patient. From another post I made, we were hoping for Honey Gourami and Cardinal Tetras but the honeys seem to be quite scarce right now. So we added some corys! Introducing, our five Peppered Corydoras! And man, these bottom dwellers are pretty fun. You can see three out of the five we added paying VERY close attention to the spider wood. They also seem to love hanging out around the Amazon Sword plants in the back. I have conflicting info from Google on the temp that peppered's like so I took in a bunch of suggestions and put it somewhere in the middle. I do have a few questions though. Other than algae and the left over food of whatever I feed the eventual other fish, what do cory's really like to eat? I would like to give them a decent selection from time to time. So here is the big one: I've read that new aquariums, like this one, will have a spike in Nitrites and Nitrates and that is just the cycle being tested for real for the first time. Do these parameters look okay for 24 post cory introduction? pH ~7.3, NH3 0 - 0.1, Nitrite ~ 3.0, Nitrate ~30, GH&KH 7 Should I be worried about the Nitrites? Is there something I can do to help remove it if that is too high for the corys? I have a quarantine tank that I can put them in if need be. Thanks!

So I think my Cory’s are cross breeding. Do to bad luck my 3 groups of Cory have dwindled down to 3 singles. An albino, emerald and bronze. Today I found what I think are eggs in several places in the tank, originally I thought maybe my hillstreams layed them but after searching fish eggs I’m thinking it was the Cory’s. Iv searched around a little on google and most people have the same reaction that honestly I don’t find helpful. So I’m going to ask the question and I just want a straight logical answers without the usual “don’t do it” response please. THIS IS NOT A TROLL QUESTION PLEASE DONT TREAT IT LIKE ONE. Why is it bad to let Cory’s crossbreed? Is it dangerous? Will they kill everything in the tank? Or is it just some kind of interracial hatred issue being projected onto fish for whatever reason? Please just give me a straight answer and not a simple “it’s bad and gross, don’t do it” reaction.

Originally I thought my silvertips were bullying on of their kind into stress and not eating until it wasted away. They did bully it, and it withdrew and hid away from the rest, not getting as good feeding opportunities. Now having had the fish for about a year, another one of the silvertips is wasting away. This time I have managed to catch and isolate it, along with another one that was exhibiting some odd behavior, seemingly the beginning of wasting away and withdrawing. Oddly enough the fish that was only starting to show the signs of something being wrong ended up worse after isolation. Maybe the stress of being captured and lifted out (it was an easy catch, no chasing, just scooping it out) was too much and the fish just lay on the bottom of the isolation unit and has later died. Water parameters (using a test strip so it's not exactly accurate): NO3 25 NO2 0 GH 6 KH 6 CL2 0 pH 6,8 - 7,0 (I have a CO2 system and monitoring system that automatically opens the valve to adjust the pH) Temp 22,3 - 23,5 degrees C or 71,6 - 73,4 F (I have a Fluval heater that shows the temperature at the back (hotter), and the other reading is from the temperature sensor of the CO2 computer near the electrode at the front) Overall the symptoms I have been able to catalogue are isolation, emaciation, stringy poo hanging from the fish, dragging their tail when swimming, swimming near the surface, not being able to swallow food (the really skinny ones still went for the food, they just spat it out almost immediately) and lack of appetite (before isolation) on the one fish that died after isolation. In addition to the fish that clearly have been sick, it appears some of the silvertips are not growing even nearly as well as others. After about a year some are over twice the size of others. Which could also be something to do with parasites leeching away nutrients. The tank is fairly large 525 liters (115,5 gallons) by outer measurements, but due to plants and rocks and driftwood the internal volume is a fair bit less. As far as I can tell, invertebrates and armored catfish and loaches tend to react negatively to parasite medication. I'm not that attached to the snails in the tank sentimentally, but obviously I'd like to avoid killing them if possible. Also there is the dread of about 10 billion malaysian trumpet snails rotting and polluting the water in the tank. I also have some cories and 3 albino spotted hoplos in the tank, and those I definitely don't want to lose. I also have a 15+ years old kuhlii loach I'd like to keep among the living. Now, what to do? Fritz ParaCleanse doesn't appear to be available in my country. Esha -ndx is generally well recommended but might be harmful to the armored catfish. I could always just treat the sick fish separately, but that is just putting out fires instead of actually improving the conditions of the fish that most likely are all already affected by the parasites. On that topic, is it species related or should I assume all fish irrespective of species are infected? Sorry if this is a bit of a mess, I tried to give all the relevant info I could think of. I'll give more if needed, obviously. The image is very much out of focus but I just couldn't get the camera to focus on the small fish that kept moving. As far as I can tell the skin is fine and healthy, It's more of an indication of behavior and overall wasted condition. Seems I can't add the gif to this post, I keep getting an 'unknown error' notification. So I attached a blurry still from a blurry video instead... The color on the image is off, the fish is silvery in real life.