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Dying Corydoras. Please help!


bucket_chemist

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Hi. I'm hoping someone on the forum can shed some light on what's happening to my corydoras.

Three of my six have died in two days. :cry1:

The tank is an AR-980 that's been up for about 4 months. Lots of live plants (babies tears, twisted val, a few others I don't know) and driftwood. Substrate is a mix of smooth stones and sand.

The inmates are 5 danios, 6 guppies, 3 dwarf chain loaches, 6 (now 3) corydoras, and 1 gold spot pleco. Everyone seems to get along fine and aggression isn't a problem. There are some small snails as well.

I've checked my water conditions and everything is within spec, although the pH is low (I think) at 6.4. Ammonia, nitrates and nitrites are all negligible.

Yesterday, I found two corys floating, which was a complete shock, as they didn't give any indication of distress that I could see. They were eating the sinking pellets I feed them once a day, just before bed. I did a 50% water change last night, just to be sure of the water quality.

There was no obvious sign of disease or trauma on either fish. One of them was quite red around the gills, but I'm not sure if this is a problem.

All the fish were present and accounted for this morning. But just now I found another cory upside down in the bushes. It all seems too much to be coincidence, but I haven't got an explanation for what's happening to them. As I said, everyone else in the tank seems to be fine. Although I would have said the same of the corydoras three days ago. :phb:

Any help you might be able to offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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Two things -

Ammonia, nitrates and nitrites are all negligible - Ammonia and nitrite should be at 0 otherwise all the fish, not only the cory will be in trouble. However this is unlikely to be the main contributor to your cory deaths.

Your dwarf chain loaches will most certainly be the culprits. Loaches and cory are not compatible. Chain loaches nip at every opportunity and are well capable of taking the eyes out of the cory. I would suggest that it has taken the four months for the loaches to build up the confidence to start causing trouble.

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Gonna be interesting seeing if you can catch the loaches to quarantine them. :spop:

Sorry, just had to say it. :bggrn:

Haha. Well...um...yeah. You seem to have hit on the flaw in my plan. It's a big tank with lots of plants. Not easy to scoop up the speedy little devils. I don't want to uproot my whole tank if I don't have to.

No fatalities today. I'm cautiously optimistic; for the moment everyone seems to be playing nicely.

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