Had my corys over a year now. Suddenly today around 3pm i saw my cory near the surface struggling breathing. This has never happened and my nitrate levels are 0. I tested the water and the chlorine did look high. I have suspected it to be chlorine poisoning. However none of the other fish seem to be having any problem what so ever. I always use the correct amount of dechlorinator when doing water changes and never forget. That lead me to think lack of oxygen. I have lots of live plants and good aeration through surface movement and filter dropping water back into the tank. But if there was lack of oxygen why are the other fish ok? I lowered the temperature to 22c to hopefully get more oxygen in the water. Please as many people reply asap as its horrid to see the corys suffering. Need some help. Ps i cant get to the store as they have shut early on Sunday. Ive added lots of dechlorinator and easy balance incase it was a nitrate, metal ion or chlorine problem. This cory was not behaving like this at 11am this morning when i was last observing.
Please reply quickly with good suggestions or what you think my be the problem. Im sure its only got 24 hours for me to fix it before it died a painful death.
There are several possible causes so it needs some working through. Is it just one cory, or all of them? Are there any other marks, such as red areas? Are the gills inflamed?
Are any of the other fish showing any signs of trouble, such as increased (fast) respiration, hanging near the surface, lethargy (not active as they usually would be), loss of colour, etc?
Has anything new recently gone in the tank, be it fish, plants, wood, etc? If you have wood, is there any sign of white fungus on it?
Whenever I see any of these, I immediately do a major water change, using only a good conditioner. At least half the tank, preferably more. As long as the water parameters in the tank are close to the tap water, this will not cause any problem, and may do a world of good.
OK thanks. There are some odd red marks at the back towards the tail. Which I can't see on the others. Best way to describe it is that it looks like internal bleeding. I have 5 corys. I got 2 new ones yesterday and added them to the 3 which are all over a year old.the one suffering is one of the original 3 not a new one. No other fish in the tank have any unusual behaviour. Just this one Cory which is what is so odd. I did add some fresh plants 2 weeks or so aswell. Any other ideas after pointing these out?
If it was one of the new cory, I would suspect it brought something with it. But to give something to the existing corys so quickly is not that likely, though not impossible. If you can quarantine new fish, it is advisable.
So I gather it is just the one cory like this. I would expect it to die, frankly, so don't be discouraged. I lost a fish yesterday from near-identical symptoms, not a cory. It appeared very suddenly, in the morning, and the fish was dead by afternoon. These were newly acquired fish in QT.
Keep a close eye on the others, both corys and other fish. Without knowing eactly what a disease/problem is, treatment is risky because various medications can be very stressful and make things worse esp if they are not even helping the real issue. A water change is advisable.
I understand its hard to diagnose as it could potentially be a lot of things. I've just done a 70% water change and that seems to have calmed it down and has shown no sign yet of going back to the top. Hopefully it won't go back up again. Thanks anyway Byron. Ill update tomorrow on whether it has made a recovery or passed away. Fingers crossed it will be OK.
Seems to twitching and rolling now. Common symptom of swinbladder. This might have just been caused by it gulping lots of air or could of originally been the issue in the first place due to the reason why it was under controllably bobbing to get air at the surface. Who know. Will see how it is tomorrow
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