Mystery Illness in Peppered and Bronze Corydoras

[tetra]

On 11/10/2023 at 4:28 PM, Colu said:

I have just reread the thread just in case I missed anything only other thing I could suggest is treating with prazipro once a week for 3 or you can treat with paracleanse every 2 weeks for 3 full course of treatment to rule out Gill flukes and add back in a small amount of aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 5 gallons  @tetra

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.

[Colu]

On 11/11/2023 at 10:21 PM, tetra said:

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.

 the co-op treat protocol is a preventive I would treat following the instructions on the box if you don't have enough medication I wait to start treatment till you can get  more paracleanse 

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/11/2023 at 2:21 PM, tetra said:

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

you should follow the directions on the package.

Hopefully you have enough for the first week of treatment and then are able to get more in on time for the next treatment.

[tetra]

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?

[Colu]

On 11/12/2023 at 9:02 PM, tetra said:

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?

What I would do is add a double of prime to your  water before adding it to your tank when doing  water changes to help detoxify any ammonia 

[tetra]

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.

[tetra]

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

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/25/2023 at 11:07 AM, tetra said:

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.

With temps that low you're going to see lethargy. Tetras want 76-78. The corydoras want 72-74.

Is circulation (water movement) low or is it generally pretty good? Does the tank have dead spots or anything? Do you see the fish always near shade, near flow, or near low flow spots?

On 11/25/2023 at 11:07 AM, tetra said:

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.

This could be due to ammonia or nitrite burn.

[tetra]

On 11/25/2023 at 11:24 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

With temps that low you're going to see lethargy. Tetras want 76-78. The corydoras want 72-74.

Is circulation (water movement) low or is it generally pretty good? Does the tank have dead spots or anything? Do you see the fish always near shade, near flow, or near low flow spots?

This could be due to ammonia or nitrite burn.

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

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/25/2023 at 11:53 AM, tetra said:

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

That makes sense.  I'm glad to hear that there's no dead spots or anything like that.  It's a tough situation.  If you can, take a video of the fish and show us what you're seeing. Photos. Water results.  Let's recap what's going on and give them time right now as well as clean water.

[tetra]

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.

[nabokovfan87]

On 12/8/2023 at 10:33 PM, tetra said:

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.

Hoping for the best.

[tetra]

I haven’t given an update in the past month, so I figured I’d give one.

So far, they’re doing great, no deaths, breathing problems are finally over, and no more white spots. The only thing that bothers me is that they still don’t do the short burst to the surface but instead slowly get up there, take a quick breathe, and swim back down, (fortunately they don’t sit at the top gasping anymore.)

It seems the most effective treatment in this scenario was giving them essential vitamins. If I didn’t give them the supplements, they would likely would have been all gone by now. Now, they have nice and round bellies, and are always willing to eat anything that falls in the tank. Not super active, but active enough for me to be comfortable.

Right now, there are only 2 peppers and 2 bronze, is it okay if I could keep them in there quarantine tank temporarily until I fix the problem with the ammonia in the tank they’re going into? (Unfortunately, there’s ammonia in my tap water) there’s five other bronze Cory’s in there right now. I was eventually gonna add 13 more peppers with the current ones, (or 12) to get a nice big school going.