sterbai,juli corys

hay all, recently bought some corys, sterbai and juli, and some died in the bag on the way home and after a week now the rest are starting t die one by one i have them in my small quarantine tank as i did not want t put them into the main tank when i seen the dead ones in the bag , i acclimatised them fine and the water parameters in my qt tank are fine,does anyone know wheter there is just a bad quality lot of them going around?? iv heard this off a few people but just want t see if anyone here knows? thanks
cheers Stuie

yeah i can take 1 or 2 deaths and that but its peculiar that all the corys from there are starting t die, i only have 3 left out of 8,so i did leave it a bit late in fairness but i was too busy thinking it was something in my tank causing it,i guess ill just live an learn and put it down to a bad experience, cheers John
Stuie

if bye any chance your looking for a few cory s i am getting some peppered corys today a good few of them so if your ever around the bally brack area give us a shout and you can take a few free of course

no just they start going on there side before they die john,no redness discoloration or that, the tank is well established and i changed the water yday, the ph is at 6.5,nitrite 0 ammonia 0 nitrate is 0-5 from the api kit and my eesha kit is giving near identical results,iv some pepper corys in it to(qt tank) and they seem fine at present and are scurrying around like mad,the 3 sterbai left as the julis are all dead now are really lifeless and lazy compared t the peppers,was told to up the temp to 30 for a few hours and see what happans whaat do you reccomend??

2 points I see…..death in the bag and death in the tank.
But are the two sets of deaths related?

Maybe, maybe not. It’s difficult to diagnose at a distance.

Corydoras produce quite a lot of ammonia.

Were all 8 (if I have read correctly) in the same bag?
If so, then firstly the bag should have added zeolite (or other molecular sieve to remove ammonia), and ideally the water should have been pH buffered and charcoal added for that number of corys in one bag.

Ammonia will cause brain damage; it often kills rapidly, but even sub-lethal doses may cause brain and other tissue damage (and that may weaken the fish for succumbing to future but early deaths....eg by fins damage that later leads to bacterial fin rot).

Corys have quite a high oxygen demand……and will use gill and aerial breathing to obtain their oxygen. Corys should not really be bagged in deep bags unless oxygen has been added directly to the bag. The attempts to navigate to the surface for oxygen is quite energy expensive…..and compromising the energy expense on already stressed fish is not a good think.

OK…so we also have a duff batch of fish. Never rule that out.

I do often wonder, however, if some corys death in transport are due to bacterial toxins (eg microcystins….potentially a neurotoxin as it crosses to the brain). Corys may be especially susceptible to these as the fish tend to eat off the grown where ‘gone-off’ food may exist. I don’t know on this one….just speculating.

ian

As a rule on dead fish, which ever the circumstances of their death may be, if there are dead ones in the bag, especially more than one, take a picture on getting home with your phone and return them to the lfs.
Unfortunately the methods some use for keeping catching and farming fish are are not always done with the long term health of the fish in mind. Heard some really horror stories of how they are getting fish from rivers, even with poison, fish are such an unknown quantity regarding their lineage and health condition.

I would advise not to add fish to an established tank in future under such circumstances, you don't want to wipe out your tank also. Are LFS legally responsible for damages if they sell you a sick fish that infest your aquarium?

If 8 were in one bag that would be as Ian said not good.


Mark

thanks guys the fish were in two bags, 4 in each bag, for 30mins max if even,i shoulda followed up wit pictures and the likes and went back to the shop,but really thought it woulda been something from my tank affecting them,but all is well i bought 3 plattys der and put them in the qt tank to see what happens them,cheers ian and Mark
Stuie

Did you buy the plattys from the same shop??

Did you tell anyone in the shop about the dead fish and why you needed to spend more money?

Did you ask about their policy on dead fish?

I'd have expected the Plattys for free at the very least.

I'd want some kind of satisfaction or I'd be bringing by custom elsewhere in future and recommending that others do the same.

Maybe that's just me.

Hey there Stuie,

Just curious about the difference between the time of purchase and your putting them into the QT? The reason I ask is that some years ago, I bought a bunch of sterbai and when I got Home, they, at least the Adults, had succumbed to oxygen depletion, the juvies followed over the period of a few weeks. They demand Oxygen rich Water and even if they can gulp from the surface, they'll not like it one little bit.

Kev.

Something like this happened my tank not to long ago as well. I bought 5 albino cory and a few guppies. One albino was as good as dead when I got him home (Again no more than 90 mins between bagging and release). However I did break the golden rule and I didnt quarantine the remainder.(I know it was rather stupid of me but I think we all break the rules on occasions,esp as all were alive when I introduced them to the tank.) Unfortunately for me I was not as lucky once they were introduced.Similar to your explaination, the corys swam around fine and had no issues,but began dying off suddenly over the next few days and without explanation. Also the guppies began to die and with it some of my other fish in the tank. I lost a few kulhi loaches also and to be honest the rate my fish were dying at one stage I was seriously worried about losing my entire tank. I did plenty of water changes,removed the new fish which were almost all dead anyhow.(none of the new introductions survived beyond a week). After several closely monitored days of water changes,tests,more water changes etc...and little feeding,eventually the die off's stopped and the tank survived.
Its hard to watch,esp when you can pin point what was wrong.I put it down to something the new fish had when they came into the tank,but similarly they proceeded to wipe out many of my other fish. (thank god my L144 didnt bite the bullet).Interestingly none of my sterbai corys died,and the water tested perfect.I even doubted that,and bought a new water test kit for about €50!
Ive had fish die offs before,I lost around 10 rummys before for no explanation as well. It happens unfortunately,and often down to the face we cannot or do not know where they are coming from and what they have been exposed to. Well done on putting them into the QT, at least you wont lose any of your existing fish.Id also put some carbon in the filter just to eliminate anything that may be in the water perhaps that isnt being spotted.
Also Id inform the shop,alot of shops dont like being told it but similarly they may not know it is happening unless you say it to them.

Gavin

ah i got the plattys out of a diff shop,im just going to keep my main purchasing with seahorse now cuz i never have a problem wit anything from there, John(xeon) keeps the fish brilliant shape there as well as the other lads, Kev,it took me half hour to get home and about an hour to introduce to the tank properly,Gav cheers i put some carbon in it now,the plattys are fine ,peppers are fine but yet iv 2 Sterbai left now,im noticing little twitches or irritations in the last 2 corys ??
oh and gav i told the shop and there saying the problem must be in my end,as you said they dont like to be told ha thanks lads

Can you recall if there was anything different about the water in the bag when you got home,most importantly,was there any bubbles(or 'froth' ),or discolouration of the water?
The reason I ask,is that Corys are known to,for lack of better words,'commit suicide' in transit.I cant recall exactly what they do,but they release a toxin into the water,which is deadly to them.It dosnt happen too often,I've never seen it,but it does happen,and no-one really understands why.

Hi Stuie.

If you still have my no. give me a bell, I can give you a few sterbai.

Kev.

didnt notice anything different at all been honest,ill watch them tonight and keep yas posted
Stuie

hay thanks for the replies but unfortunately the last two were dead this morning cheers for trying t help,
Stuie

Acara mentions the cory toxins ("ichthyocrinotoxins").......
an interesting aspect that needs much more research.
I've even put the name of them in quotes to indicate a generic term for them.

The self-toxicity is not fully explored, and I would presently be quite reluctant to accept the conclusion until more proper research is done.

Even the actual usefulness (to the fish) of the 'toxins' is under question; it appears that they have a defensive role when stressed, but there are many things suggesting that that is even questionable.

Lestat, bad to hear about your continued bad fortune.

Do you happen to know how long the shop had had the fish in before you bought them?

ian

they got them the thursday evening and sold them to me the saturday morning,my other fish in the qt tank are all fine,just leaving them for another day or 2 just as precaution,
cheers ian

just read this about the toxins thought it was interestinghttp://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/9/282
cheers stuie

lestat wrote:

just read this about the toxins thought it was interestinghttp://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/9/282
cheers stuie

How did you manage to get a link to that rather good paper (I have it PDF format somewhere at home)?

I'd have guessed that if you googled anything on the topic that you'd have only come up with vague non-scientific discussions jumping out of the page at you.

It's good that there are some free scientific papers available to people who are not necessarily on an Athens account (an special account that universities have to obtain a large number of scientific papers on-line).

I tend to leave corys a while before I buy, by the way.

I tend to leave corys a while before I buy, by the way.

advice which ill defo take on board next time cheers Ian
Stuie