damaged whiskers

[angel51431]

How dangerous to a Cory can damaged barbels really be? I read that it lowers their ability to find food and stuff.

Well, out of my eight cories, I'd say four show some damage to their wiskers. The two older albinos both have damaged wiskers (the male has one missing, the female only has two wiskers), though it doesn't seem to impair their ability to find food at all. They're always the first to find food, and are gluttons compared to the other cories. Their wiskers have been like that as long as I remember, and they don't seem to mind.

Now the two arcuatus cories are a different story. I only bought them about a month ago, and a week ago I found their barbels much shortened. Now these two do seem to have a bit of trouble finding their food.

Is there anything I can do to remedy the situation? None of the other cories seem to have any whisker trouble at all. Are the arcuatus ones just overly sensitive to something? I know substrate is an issue with cories. My setup is gravel on one side, and sand on the other. The gravel is rather large, but its mostly rounded, not sharp. Plus the cories stay on the sandy part of the tank.

 

[catfishmike]

well it sounds like one of two things either sharp gravel or undesierable bacteria in the gravel.how often are you gravel vacuming the tank?also if you aren't growing plants use as little substrate as pssible to avoid excess buildup in the gravel.now i just lokedback and reread the last part so now have a better idea.if yuare using larger gravel there will be a excess of bacteria in the large gravel because it won't stay as clean s sand or fine gravel.i tried large gavel and instantbarbel erosion so try all sand and see what happens.keep me posted

 

[angel51431]

I vacuum the gravel pretty much rarely, mostly because the tank is rather planted. I've been thinking of changing the gravel to a finer kind, because I don't really like sand (though I love watching the cories sift the sand through their gills). Problem is, the last time I changed the gravel was when I completely restarted the tank, so I wouldn't really know how to do it otherwise. Getting the large gravel out, I can manage. Getting the sand out seems impossible. I agree that large gravel would harvest more bacteria, since food and mulm and stuff falls through gaps easier. I didn't know that when I first got the gravel, unfortunately.

On the other hand, their barbels seem much better today. They seem to almost completely have grown back on the arcuatus cories. The albino cories are still missing some barbels, but since its been that way for months now, and they don't seem too concerned about it, I'm not worried about those two. I really had no idea that the barbels could grow back (since they never did on the albinos). The arcuatus cories are doing a much better job at finding food also (they love to 'vacuum' the large leaves on which stuff settles on).

In any case, I know I have to take better care, I can be lazy at times. Though I didn't have cories when I got the large gravel (years ago), and I didn't know that it'd collect more bacteria because the gravel I had prior was smaller, and i never got concerned with it. I'll have to look into what it'd take to change the gravel. But for now I'm just happy that the Cories' barbels seem to have gotten better