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Post by flyingbettas on May 21, 2019 5:22:17 GMT -5
Good morning all, I am creating a different post for the Cory just so it does not get super confusing. I am new to this forum. We are getting back into fishkeeping after a decade of hiatus and have been doing research to make sure we do it right this time. However, what went wrong was that we ended up "rescuing" a couple of sick fish from a big box store I shall not name. Three of them did well (Thanks in large to multiple articles on AAP and aquarium-pond-answers and multiple internet forums. We read about water chemistry, medications, how to treat sick fish, etc and there is a lot to take in. We took four corydoras home. Two was doing good, the other two on the lethargic side with very little finnage left. We started our first fish, a betta, out with Crystal Geyser Spring water a week before we start the cory tank and got good result. That water is about PH 6.8, KH 75, GH 75. No ammonia or nitrite , and perhaps some nitrate (5 ppm at the most). However at the time we started this corydora tank we attempted to fix our water parameter without using Equillibrium, Replenish or Buffers by mixing some Zephyrhills spring water with what we used initially (Crystal Geyser) , ratio 50:50. Crystal geyser is about 200 KH and 200 GH at 7.8 PH. We gave them API general cure, dosed exactly per instruction on the box. The two sick corydoras seem to do fine. One showed a slow improvement, while the other one showed a huge improvement. His fin grew back and he became a lot more active HOWEVER We found out last night that our nitrate level was high. One of the Cories died and another one that seemed to be healthy when he arrived started to act lethargic and show some fraying on his finnage, and we were alarmed. We did a full panel testing rather than just ammonia, nitrite, KH and GH. We wondered what it was, and found that Zephyrhills water has high nitrate right out of the jug (20 ppm) and our PH was 8!!! The huge water change using only Crystal Geyser brought nitrate down to less than 5 ppm. (we took 16 gallons of the old water out, then add 10 gallons back in at the rate of 3/4 gallon per every 20 minutes, the new water was warmed up to match the previous temperature. So the questions are: 1. Would you say water change is enough or should we have some plan B on meds for that Cory that is starting to get sick? So right now we are left with 2 albino cories and 1 emerald. The sick one is the emerald who seem the most active of the whole bunch upon arrival a week ago but now seems to have one barbel eroding and his fins look like they are starting to fray. Substrate in the tank is sand. We were thinking about giving getting him more emerald cories so he has a school and wont be stressed out, but now I don't want to bring and more fish in just for them to catch what may be going on in the tank, get sick and die. 2. if we put the sick cory into a hospital tank that has no filter (we are going to put a little medicine vial with matrix in the tank if we end up putting him there) , treat with an antibiotics, see no upward trend therefore switch to another antibiotics, how do we remove the first antibiotics from the water? A super huge water change? or is it ok to have a trace amount left after 50% water change? Or do something entirely different?? In addition this tank is not cycled. It is 20 G and only has 3 Corydoras. We plan on fishless cycling but could not stand seeing those Cories in their sad little tank at the big box store so we took them home. Cycling a 20G with 3 cories seem difficult......We appreciate any advice getting the tank cycle while they live in the tank. Thanks in advance for your help. Attachments:
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Post by devonjohnsgard on May 21, 2019 11:07:23 GMT -5
I would think the issue was more with trying to keep the pH stable/change rather than the Nitrate. 20 isn't horrible. I would try to do only 20% water changes even if you have to do multiples.
You can use carbon to remove the meds. I would avoid large water changes, which are so hard to match to the tanks water, and that's where there can be balancing issues that can harm the fish. pH is the harshest on the fish, when there's a huge swing in it.
Maybe see how the fish does with the new water, then consider a treatment. Many time, water will not be stable and the treatment will not be effective. Keeping a stable environment is the highest priority and many times, fish can heal on their own.
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Post by flyingbettas on May 21, 2019 11:41:30 GMT -5
Thank you so much. I will not feed him any med and will monitor and hopefully things will settle down. It is odd though, that tank does not have a huge ph swing at all. It may be a little higher --say it started out being 7.6 an approached 8 when this whole cory dying situation happened. Yet again, I understand PH is logarithmic scale so that might be huge And a question -- if hospital tank does not have carbon filtration (let's say they are all small 3.5-4 gallon tub with sponge filter) is there anything we have can do to remove the med beyond a bunch of small water change? I am not doing the Cory with any med but figure it would be nice to know because, I am treating a bunch of bettas with med. (You answered the other thread so you know why I ask)  Is it really essential to completely get medicine A out before dosing, say, medicine B if we need to switch med for any reason? TIA! |
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Post by devonjohnsgard on May 22, 2019 10:43:33 GMT -5
Thank you so much. I will not feed him any med and will monitor and hopefully things will settle down. It is odd though, that tank does not have a huge ph swing at all. It may be a little higher --say it started out being 7.6 an approached 8 when this whole cory dying situation happened. Yet again, I understand PH is logarithmic scale so that might be huge And a question -- if hospital tank does not have carbon filtration (let's say they are all small 3.5-4 gallon tub with sponge filter) is there anything we have can do to remove the med beyond a bunch of small water change? I am not doing the Cory with any med but figure it would be nice to know because, I am treating a bunch of bettas with med. (You answered the other thread so you know why I ask) Is it really essential to completely get medicine A out before dosing, say, medicine B if we need to switch med for any reason? TIA! It's nice to completely get the med out and give the fish a complete break from any meds to help they're immune system recover. I would just get a pouch of carbon and rubber band it to the sponge filter. |
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Post by Carl on May 22, 2019 12:10:45 GMT -5
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Post by flyingbettas on May 22, 2019 14:54:30 GMT -5
@ Devonjohnsgard that is a nifty trick.  )) @carl I have not paid as much attention as I should on Nitrate. I am reading up on the articles you linked. At this time I am going to try bettamax bath. He is still eating and swimming normally. To minimize stress I think I would start with bettamax bath first and hold off in tank treatment or seperating him into a hospital tank. Do you think I am on the right track? I am even thinking about using Bettamax on the whole tank but other Cories seem to be doing ok. A little apprehensice about the bath --The reason being is netting him will be tough. I have seen LFS employee net fish the fish did not even know what was coming. Super fast and very little stress for all involved, but I don't have that skill yet  I know he can live in the breeder box floating in the main tank if I dont want to net him eveyday, but in the meantime I want to reduce his stress level by keeping him in the same environment ( having the run of the tank) I will just go ahead and do the bath, please let me know if in tank treatment or separation in the hospital tank will be necessary. I will report back with results |
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Post by flyingbettas on May 31, 2019 12:44:53 GMT -5
Just want to let everybody know!!
He is well now:) a couple dip and all done. We also got him another same specie of cory and he seems a lot more active and less stressed out. Tank almost done cycling, planning on a school of at least five to keep them happy.
Thanks!!!
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Post by flyingbettas on Jun 18, 2019 15:09:00 GMT -5
Dear all, Bad news, due to unstable parameter ( ammonia, nitrite spike and tank taking forever to cycle, the end was not as near as I thought at the time of my last post). Despite religiously dosing the tank with prime and daily small water change cories fell ill. We lost two. One was emaciated, stopped eating but still swam around from time to time. The other one had huge bloated stomach and appears to have internal bleeding but was still eating. We separated them into the hospital tank but the stress tipped them over the edge and they passed with an hour of being moved to the hospital tank. The remaining inhabitant are : 1 emerald cory, 2 pepper cory ( trilineatus) and 1 albino The only remaining albino cory is ill. Eyes are starting to bulge a little bit. Tail was slowly eroding, till yesterday huge chunks started to go missing. Fish still active. I tried to medicate the tank with spectogram and methylene blue but was not well tolerated ( fish started to act lethargic and became active again upon removal of the medicine) At this time all fish (4 left in 10 gallon) seem ok apart from being slightly lethargic and some does not eat as aggrssively. Note that the albino came from walmart. The fin was short but with smooth edge when it got home, grew out during the first two week, the deteriorated rapidly One note from me, I read your article about fin nipping and totally agree. I have seen chunks of fin missing like that from my betta then this cory. My betta got better with spectogram and MWS which led me to believe it was probably F. Columnare bacteria. Now this cory is missing chunks of fin and there was no way he could have nipped his fin. There is nothing in that tank except silk plants, sand and other cories. Now it annoys me to see people talk about betta fin nipping on forums. Not treating aggressively due to not knowing it is a bacterial infection, the fish could end up dead, this misinformation is EVERYWHERE!!!!!! Q1.Anyways. What do we do now with this albino cory? Spectogram and methylene blue bath ( because they don't seem to tolerate that as in tank treatment at normal dose) and tail swab? We did try spectogram and methyblue bath after removing med from the tank. They tolerate bath fine up to one hour. We aee not aure, though, if this is the right treatment so we figure we'd ask. We also swabbed his tail with merbromin and the tissue at the edges are stained red and remain red after 2 hours. Looks loke whateve is eating his tail up is pretty aggressive. Q2,How about the other three cories? ( 2 absolutely normal, 1 slight lethargy)? We dont want to separate the albino for fear that the stress would kill him like it killed the cories we attempted to separate a month ago. Q3I want to consider hydrogen peroxide 3% OR potassium permanganate tail swab on the albino. If using potassium permanganate swab, how do I properly dilute this for a swab? ( we only have a product called jungle fungus clear) we do have AAP's wound control as well. Q4 is eye fungex safe on cories? They are so small that it will definitely get on the gill plate when we do the drops. Will that be ok? Will it help this cory? Now all fish have been moved to 10 gallon with zeolite, parameter 0.25 ammonia (zeolite was put in yesterday, previously we used prime) 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 7.4 ph 2 kh ( will buffer up tonight) and 7 gh. The twenty will be going through fishless cycle and will be ready in two weeks. We do not have cycled filter media available so have to using zeolite as a crush. Fish in cycle is a terrible idea. We wanted to do fishless cycling but ended up attempting a rescue from walmart but all of them die( except the albino) due to fish in cycling. I guess in the end we are not really helping them. |
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Post by flyingbettas on Jun 19, 2019 9:23:49 GMT -5
Update,
Seems that the disease is moving fast. One pepper cory that used to eat a lot is has now stopped eating and is lethargic. ( stopped eating yesteday and grew more and more lethargic )So it is odd, because two of the fish that died looked different. One had no fin erosion at all, just emaciated, one had fin erosion and bloating. Now this pepper cory that is going downhill fast shows no sign of eye problem and look just fine on the outside, but s actng really off and start to rock in the current or get knocked around by tankmates.
Looks like we need to pick the right antibiotics. If we choose wrong, well,...once they stop eating for a couple days it seems they never recover from that. As always, we appreciate your help. Thank you so much!
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Post by devonjohnsgard on Jun 19, 2019 10:01:46 GMT -5
Sorry for all the issues. Illness are very hard to treat if there's not stable parameters.
I would consider double dose spectrogram in bath twice a day with the methylene blue.
Then stick to the Merbromin swabs.
That's what I would do.
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Post by flyingbettas on Jun 19, 2019 16:01:17 GMT -5
Thanks Devon. Will do!
yeah we would never attempt to rescue anything ( other than bettas) without cycled filter media ever again. A lot of heartache, and everybody may end up dying.
20g will be running by tomorrow. We will be cycling with botted ammonia in a 10g and hopefully the filter media will be ready as soon as the ammonia starts to register in the 20G.
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Post by flyingbettas on Jun 19, 2019 16:12:51 GMT -5
Just want to clarify on this
Is eye fungex safe to use in these little guys?
Wont use it now , just want to know since they are so delicate.
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Post by Carl on Jun 20, 2019 8:46:58 GMT -5
Just want to clarify on this Is eye fungex safe to use in these little guys? Wont use it now , just want to know since they are so delicate. Yes, but it is somewhat difficult to use with fish as small as many Cories. If you feel comfortable, I would use Eye Fungex if the eyes are clouded with infection. BTW, as per baths, I suggest 30 minutes. AAP Spectrogram should be used at double or even triple dose in a bath Make sure to watch water parameters too when treating in the main tank (ammonia/nitrites in particular) Potassium Permanganate should ONLY be used on exposed infection (such as fungal growth on the fish) Hydrogen Peroxide is NOT as effective as Merbromin (AAP Wound Control), and is not a good choice in really any situation other than Merbromin not being available. Methylene Blue, while also not as strong a swab, it is useful as a stain to see where tissue is damaged. Finally make sure to not go past two treatment regimens without a break of at least 5 days. Consider a different treatment in tank when resuming Carl |
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Post by flyingbettas on Jun 26, 2019 1:49:03 GMT -5
Carl, Thank you. The uncycled tank made it almost impossible to get anything to work. We have two survivor now and have been doing multiple water change to keep them alive. Alas for thise that get swab and eyedrop, they did not make it. Merbromin did NOT get anywhere apart from the fin ( we fashioned a teeny q tip out of tiny piece of cotton from a cotton ball and a small wire) . I think the stress from the procedure did them in. A very bad week for us. the lesson is if the tank is not cycle we cant rescue little delicate fish like these. we are trying to cycle filter media as fast as we can, the two survivors now reside in the newly cleaned 20 gal. We feed sparingly..but still 0.25 ammonia after 4 days  Two tiny fish in 20g @ 77F!? could it be because the sand we rinsed out and re use after breaking that tank down a week ago still have rotten crushed shrimp pellet in it and thus giving out ammonia? It is odd. We fid 50% water change yesterday, but anmonia test after water change looked about the same. ( we did a control test tube with RO water and the RO tube was yellow, the tube that came from the tank definitely has green tint to it. any thoughts appreciated as always. Survivors got their last day of medicated bath this evening. Still ok, but considering whats going on with the tank we are not optimistic. Not cycled is pretty much imminent death  |
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Post by Carl on Jun 26, 2019 20:01:18 GMT -5
Carl, Thank you. The uncycled tank made it almost impossible to get anything to work. We have two survivor now and have been doing multiple water change to keep them alive. Alas for thise that get swab and eyedrop, they did not make it. Merbromin did NOT get anywhere apart from the fin ( we fashioned a teeny q tip out of tiny piece of cotton from a cotton ball and a small wire) . I think the stress from the procedure did them in. A very bad week for us.[/quote Sorry to read this With these small fish and from the pictures I viewed, a MB Bath would probably been all that is/was neeeded Honestly .25 ammonia should not caused this much of a problem Rinsing filter media with tap water will almost always destroy your bio filter that is in the gravel. However I doubt much organics could have made it past this rinsing You might consider a SeaChem Ammonia Alert as a compliment to your Standard ammonia test Further Reading: www.aquarium-pond-answers.com/2006/08/aquarium-gravel-which-size.htmlwww.americanaquariumproducts.com/Nitrogen_Cycle.htmlCarl |
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Post by flyingbettas on Jun 28, 2019 5:34:56 GMT -5
Thank you Carl! You are probably right it is not just this one instance of 0.25 ppm ammonia. May be cumulative stress over the month on unstable parameters.
It looks like we have columnaris. One of the cories have what looks like cotton ball on its mouth and does not SEEM ( in case I am wrong) that there are filaments sticking out of the cotton ball thingy. Also judging from how the cories are getting sick and going downhill fast one by one, i really think its gotta be columnaris...
But do you think that is what it is ?
We plan on treating with Sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim since when very sick like this spectogram seem to make them lethargic. What would you suggest? Maybe being lethargic is not as big a deal as we make it out to be and we should opt for something stronger? I have a lot of stuff I can use, even levofloxacin. Have Naladin, Oxytetracycline, Doxycycline, Myacin, neoplex, metroplex, spectogram, well you name it, we probably have it.
Also heard some people just use 3% hydrogen peroxide and dose into the tank and it worked. But probably too hard on the cories.
Can sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim be combined with malachite green? Or with medicated wonder shell?
I have a bad feeling about this becaue columnaris kills so, so fast...poor cories.
Thank you in advance for your help!
( btw it really look like cotton ball on the mouth, just a little more translucent not totally opaque like an actual cotton ball)
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Post by devonjohnsgard on Jun 28, 2019 10:47:16 GMT -5
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Post by Carl on Jun 28, 2019 12:16:46 GMT -5
Good point! As for Sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, this can be effective and can be combined with Malachite Green containing products However as an alternative to AAP Spectrogram, I would consider AAP/SeaChem PolyGuard With Spectrogram, I have not observed fish getting lethargic with its use, and this includes using it at double dose (which I have done on many occasions since it is safe to do and is sometimes necessary with stubborn infections) www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquatronics.html#spectrogramwww.americanaquariumproducts.com/Seachem.html#polyguardAlso look at the symptoms described for Aeromonas, as while Columnaris is a common infection, it seems to be the "fad disease" of late in so many things I read when in fact in my decades of house calls being a "fish Dr", I actually found Aeromonas the more common infection, especially in tanks with higher bio loads or with bottom dwellers www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Vibrio_Aeromonas.htmlCarl |
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Post by flyingbettas on Jun 29, 2019 10:13:08 GMT -5
Good morning! Thank you. We are going to add malachite green to SMZ-TMP.. ( smz- tmp dosed in the tank yesterday ) We did use polyguard but did not seem to work. The mouth sore on a pepper cory progressed in two days an he is now dead. Picture- #1cory on wednesday ( near thermometer strip) , #2 ( same cory on Friday ( rapid breathing, now dead). The symptoms keep progrssing fast despite using polyguard on wednesday Only one cory , an emerald cory, survives at this point. He stopped eating after his buddy passed away. He is by himself in a 10g, no sign of infection other than tail erosion. If we need to switch antibiotics we will, just let us know what to use. Do you think I should swab his tail? More water change? We are willing to do anything to keep him alive and make him well. Params: ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate5 77F kh 3 gh 8 |
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Post by devonjohnsgard on Jul 1, 2019 7:52:58 GMT -5
If your going to switch antibiotics, I would start all over with the baths and swabs as well.
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))
I know he can live in the breeder box floating in the main tank if I dont want to net him eveyday, but in the meantime I want to reduce his stress level by keeping him in the same environment ( having the run of the tank)
Two tiny fish in 20g @ 77F!?
