Odd new illness

[slinky]

Hi guys. It's been a while but I've been spending the time cultivating some new fish (and yes, pics will follow. :) ) But I have had a weird outbreak of something I can't explain and it is affecting my cories. I'm posting it here because I'm hoping it wont affect the other fish as I isolate them.

For some reason I'm noticing that some of the cories (julii) have begun to "stand up" on their tails as you see in the picture. I can't be sure if some of them have begun to suffer from fin/tail rot and that might be the case. I'm hoping that the others in the tank won't get affected but I'm reluctant to start adding meds to the main tank (I also have carbon-like filtering.) Have you guys seen this before? Have you decided to add a little med to the tank for preventative measure?

[CAllain]

I haven't seen this, but the barbels look a little short? It might be that the gravel is irritating them - you may want to consider switching part of the substrate to a fine smooth sand to see how they do in that.

[smaug]

do there bellys seem swelled at all.In the pic he seems to be kind of swelled.

[slinky]

do there bellys seem swelled at all.In the pic he seems to be kind of swelled.
No, that is what is so weird. It's not dropsy. One of the cories looks like he's lost a lot of color and is less active than he used to be. The darker cory looks like he may have some fin rot but can't really tell with cories sometimes as it's difficult. I've just never seen this behavior where they sort of "stand up" or raise their head. Weird and not good.

[smaug]

Its a mystery to me.

[slinky]

I took another quick look. Their bellies aren't swollen but it looks like their bottom is "curved" towards upright - and I'm not sure if this is natural and they are just doing this because they want to. I don't think these are cories ready to give birth and I don't know what one even looks like, being unable to properly sex julii cories which is incredibly difficult.

[Fishalicious]

Could you maybe have planaria or some other worms in your substrate that are irritating the cories? Could be a reason they are holding their bodies up from the ground.

Worms like to come out at night so 1 or 2 hours after lights out switch it on to see if you can see some crawling around.

You can make a bloodworm trap to get them out if that is the case...

[slinky]

What a great answer about the worms but the answer is no. I put two of them in a solitary quarantine tank and one of them has his head up in the air as if his back area is weighted down and his head is lighter, lol. Can't figure it out.

[slinky]

Here are a few more of the weird pictures. Oddly enough another Cory I found on his back unfortunately, and didn't see anything wrong with him.

[CAllain]

Though I don't know what's wrong, if one's died (I'm guessing that's what you mean) it might be an idea to try a general medication. I'm not sure what's available for you - we're quite limited but I've usually had good results from eSHa 2000

Also, it might just be the photo quality, but the barbels do look really short to me, kinda as though they're worn down

[MrDrums]

You know, I have never had good luck with corys....haven't had them for a few years, but as I recall, mine always displayed the same behavior as yours. I thought it was normal, but maybe I was wrong. At any rate, I could never keep them alive for more than just a few months, so I finally stopped keeping them. Now have Debauwi cats, which I thought were bottom feeders, but come to find out they are top water fish. Lucky mistake, as I love them now!

Anyway, I hope the corys survive for you. I would not medicate yet as you still do not know what (if anything) is wrong with them. See how they do for a few days.

[troy]

What are your water parameters?

[slinky]

Water is fine although a little bit on the base side of the equation. I have 4. These two look like hell although one worse than the other. Looking more closely it seems there is rear tail fin rot. Could also be from standing up on their back fin too. The other two cories look fine, back tail looks nice and the other fish seem fine too.

So the big question is whether to dump in some triple sulfa into the tank to make sure there isn't a problem or whether just a good quick 50% water change will do the trick. This worries me as it's the first time in a long time this has happened and I don't want the other fish to catch this junk, whatever it may be.

[slinky]

More pictures... here they are, bending upwards slightly and holding themselves upright on their front fins. Good boy Fido, now roll over...

(PS - back fins do not look good, that is what I'm noticing. Others look fine. Have no idea how this could have happened.)

[MrDrums]

Fins do look a little beat up.....I really can't tell if it is fin rot though...maybe someone else can confirm that one. Try the water change, estra stress coat or some similar product and see what happens. A good water change is a good start to help deal with this, just be careful not to overdo it and change too much.

[slinky]

Thanks man. These little guys are still in the quarantine tank where I think they may stay for a long time. The main tank seems to be OK and I've taken a good look at the remaining cories and they look fine. I can see a significant difference between their tails and they look healthy.

What's funny is I think I lost an otocinclus. I've looked all over but can't find him. I wonder if he got sucked out with a water change and never made it back but I doubt it. Perhaps he discintegrated? LOL.