Cories with fin rot.

[Rocksor]

If you don't have live plants, then you should siphon to the bottom of the tank with every water change. The amount of detritus should not be a medium/dark brown. If it is, then you've not been siphoning that area enough. By not doing a deep siphon weekly, you leave pockets of oxygen-less space where anaerobic bacteria grow and begin the denitrification process. When you do siphon these anaerobic areas or they are sifted by substrate sifting fish, the denitrification process is interrupted, causing ammonia and/or nitrite to be released into the water.

[Mspringer]

If you don't have live plants, then you should siphon to the bottom of the tank with every water change. The amount of detritus should not be a medium/dark brown. If it is, then you've not been siphoning that area enough. By not doing a deep siphon weekly, you leave pockets of oxygen-less space where anaerobic bacteria grow and begin the denitrification process. When you do siphon these anaerobic areas or they are sifted by substrate sifting fish, the denitrification process is interrupted, causing ammonia and/or nitrite to be released into the water.

I do have some live plants but I wouldn’t call it heavily planted. There are three live plants in there that are doing well. There was a sword in there that was thriving and I was able to split it and now have two of them going. When I do siphon I get some light colored debris from the substrate, but nothing dark. What do you think?

[Rocksor]

Light in areas away from the plants or near the plants? Thinking about a 3-4" radius around each plant

[Mspringer]

Light in areas away from the plants or near the plants? Thinking about a 3-4" radius around each plant

It’s pretty much the same everywhere from what I notice.

[angelcraze2]

If you don't have live plants, then you should siphon to the bottom of the tank with every water change. The amount of detritus should not be a medium/dark brown. If it is, then you've not been siphoning that area enough. By not doing a deep siphon weekly, you leave pockets of oxygen-less space where anaerobic bacteria grow and begin the denitrification process. When you do siphon these anaerobic areas or they are sifted by substrate sifting fish, the denitrification process is interrupted, causing ammonia and/or nitrite to be released into the water.

Can this cause immediate death? Say if a large amount of anaerobic bacteria is released at once? Or would it take a while and the fish would show ammonia toxicity symptoms? I'm curious about this, sorry for the hijack question.

@Mspringer, I said half dose because cories are known to be extra sensitive to meds. But since you already dosed full and no problems, I guess it's ok?

Seachem advises two weeks of Paraguard treatment for unknown issues.

I get grey detritus if I siphon too close to my plants with API or Flourish root tabs.

[Mspringer]

Can this cause immediate death? Say if a large amount of anaerobic bacteria is released at once? Or would it take a while and the fish would show ammonia toxicity symptoms? I'm curious about this, sorry for the hijack question.

@Mspringer, I said half dose because cories are known to be extra sensitive to meds. But since you already dosed full and no problems, I guess it's ok?

Seachem advises two weeks of Paraguard treatment for unknown issues.

I get grey detritus if I siphon too close to my plants with API or Flourish root tabs.

So...I came home today to another dead Cory. I’m at a bit of a loss on this one...the 4 that I had left seemed perfectly fine last night when I was watching them. All eating well and active. Too many meds?

I believe the point with the vacuuming is not as much ammonia(although releasing too much decaying mater could cause a spike in ammonia) but more so that it provides a breeding ground for undesired bacteria. Correct?

I had always read that for sand I just needed to skim the top, but it sounds like maybe more is needed?

Another question....I know that I need to get to the point I need to treat for another week or so and make sure that I can go without an deaths for a hit before adding anything else...but really at what point would you guys be ok with adding to this tank? At this point all that is in the 38 falling tank is 6 harlequin rasboras and 3 cories.

[Mspringer]

Just checked ammonia and nitrates. Still holding steady with ammonia a definite 0 and nitrates around 5 or 10.

[Mspringer]

Can this cause immediate death? Say if a large amount of anaerobic bacteria is released at once? Or would it take a while and the fish would show ammonia toxicity symptoms? I'm curious about this, sorry for the hijack question.

@Mspringer, I said half dose because cories are known to be extra sensitive to meds. But since you already dosed full and no problems, I guess it's ok?

Seachem advises two weeks of Paraguard treatment for unknown issues.

I get grey detritus if I siphon too close to my plants with API or Flourish root tabs.

Also...I should add that I was aware cories were sensitive to meds and that a half dose of some meds was required but usually they something about sensitive fish on the bottle of those meds, I didn’t see anything on the the bottle of paraguard about this so I went with the full dose but after loosing what I thought was a perfectly healthy Cory on day 6 of doing full doses maybe that was a mistake?

[angelcraze2]

Ahhhh darn, so sorry about another cory. Rocksor would know more, but I don't think Paraguard would kill a cory, it doesn't build up as far as I know. You just dose every 24hrs.

Regarding your question about new stock:
Honestly I wouldn't add until fish are holding steady for a month. But maybe I'm a bit overkill. I'd also be QTing, but I know you don't wanna hear that either!

My 2 cents:
I just wouldn't want to introduce more fish to a potential infectious problem and have to treat them all. More fish equals harder to treat. Then after you wait to make sure the fish in your tank are all good and healthy, you wouldn't want to possibly contaminate or expose them to a pathogen brought back into the main tank with the new fish.

I'm going to review the symptoms your other cories had.

[Mspringer]

Ahhhh darn, so sorry about another cory. Rocksor would know more, but I don't think Paraguard would kill a cory, it doesn't build up as far as I know. You just dose every 24hrs.

Regarding your question about new stock:
Honestly I wouldn't add until fish are holding steady for a month. But maybe I'm a bit overkill. I'd also be QTing, but I know you don't wanna hear that either!

My 2 cents:
I just wouldn't want to introduce more fish to a potential infectious problem and have to treat them all. More fish equals harder to treat. Then after you wait to make sure the fish in your tank are all good and healthy, you wouldn't want to possibly contaminate or expose them to a pathogen brought back into the main tank with the new fish.

I'm going to review the symptoms your other cories had.

I have QTd before but I just honestly don’t feel like I have enough left in my display to really worry about it plus I have some danios in my QT that are real punks, that’s why I moved them out of the display.