messed up cories

metsrangersfan15

metsrangersfan15

Medium Fish
#1
Sep 5, 2011
89
0
0
New Jersey
#1
so we had a bunch of cories in our 55. every so often we'd lose one or two, as cories seem to do on occasion. we are now down to two and they are missing the barbels located around their mouths.
The areas are red, which i assumed looked like blood, and look just completely sawed off.

on top of that, they refuse to swim along the bottom, they just tread in open water.

the parameters checked out fine with no ammonia, no nitrites, and a ph of about 6.9.
every other fish has been doing fine. any ideas as to what may be going on?
 

jediinthedark

jediinthedark

Large Fish
#4
May 5, 2004
645
0
0
Baltimore, MD
www.BreakingTheDark.com
#4
Sounds like the barbels are getting worn off by the gravel.
Corries will run their mouths along the bottom and "taste" the ground with their barbels. Corries will also dig through the gravel with their mouths.
If the gravel is abrasive the mouth area will get damaged. It would make sense to me that the fish may be reluctant to go act normally at the bottom if they begin to associate the bottom with their mouth discomfort.
Only you can determine if this is really the problem with the corries or not.

If you decide that the substrate needs to be replaced you may want to check out the Soft Belly Soil version of this:
AquariumPlants.com's own: Freshwater Plant Substrate

Oh, how long have you had the corries and this current setup?
 

metsrangersfan15

metsrangersfan15

Medium Fish
#5
Sep 5, 2011
89
0
0
New Jersey
#5
yeah its very possible. we had other bottom feeders where it never happened to them, such as a loach and other cores at various times.
the set up is now 4 years old, but we had to dismantle and re-set up about a year and a half ago. the weird part about this is the fact that we would successfully keep them for long periods of time and then they just kind of crapped out and these are beat now, as well.
 

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metsrangersfan15

metsrangersfan15

Medium Fish
#6
Sep 5, 2011
89
0
0
New Jersey
#6
so heres another thought. my dad's tank recently had a lot of plants die off and not all of them exited the tank. from this we ended up with a lot of dead/decaying matter on the bottom of the tank. we saw little tiny bubbles coming from the gravel up toward the surface. could the decaying matter be producing hydrogen sulfide or something of that nature? if it was, that could explain the corys' mouths as they would have been burned off
 

jediinthedark

jediinthedark

Large Fish
#8
May 5, 2004
645
0
0
Baltimore, MD
www.BreakingTheDark.com
#8
Decaying matter in your substrate is capable of creating bubbles as it decomposes. However I think it unlikely that anything down there would become so acidic as to physically damage the barbels of a fish. I would expect that anything capable of doing that would alter the Ph of the aquarium and kill everything in it before you would notice missing barbels on the corries.

Question: How are you feeding them, and has there been a feeding change?
If the fish are having to dig for food more (the dig with their mouths) than in the past, then maybe the barbels are just rubbing off with the increased activity.
The fish may dig more if a satisfactory amount of food is not reaching the bottom.
 

djm761

djm761

Large Fish
#9
Mar 21, 2011
190
0
0
#9
How about the old fashion flesh eating fungus/mouth rot, I just had this infect one of my Uarus, I treated it with jungle brand fungus clear,it took about two weeks but it cleared up the fish is now back in the community tank and doing well.


PS: thanks Lauraf and KcMopar.
 

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