Cory Catfish not eating or moving

Hi

I recently got 3 cory catfish for my 10 gallon aquarium. When I added them to the tank, they didn't really move too much, nor did they eat. I figured they were just stressed from the trip home. I've tried feeding algae wafers and a slice of cucumber. About 5 days later, one died. It's been just over a week now, and the other 2 still aren't eating, and they aren't moving too much. The aquarium store said it was fine to combine different species of corys, so I got one Delphax Cory, one Sterbai Cory, and one Gold Green Cory. I believe the one that died was the Delphax.

Some info on the tank. It is a new tank. I've cycled the water for 3 weeks with a hanging filter running and add Prime to condition the water. There is a heater, set to 77 degrees. The water parameters I have is 77 degrees, 7.2ph, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, 120GH and 40KH. I used a API master kit. The GH and KH was tested with a test stripe. The hanging filter definitely seems to be creating some water bubbles as it pours in, so there's plenty of oxygen.

Can anyone help me with what's wrong? Thank you!

 

Your tank is probobly not cycled yet. Did you add a sorce of ammonia to start the cycle?
Did you acclimate them or plop and drop?

You can mix species of cories, but you should have at least 6 of each species and ideally more then 6 per species. Cories usually play nice with other species but its almost as if the different species speak different languages. Imagine if you were put in a human zoo, with 12 other people, but they all spoke different languages, it would be stressful right? depressing right? Also, A ten-gallon tank is too small for many of those species.

When I buy new fish I try to find out what those fish have been eating, and if they dont adjust to the food that I feed right away, I try to get the food that they are used to and ween them over to better foods if I need to.

 

Hi Chronoxx251

Welcome to the forum.

It would seem the tank is not cycled completely because you don’t mention adding ammonia before adding fish. Having 000 also suggests it’s not cycled.
A link to the nitrogen cycle can be found by clicking on the green words.

While it is not the reason for the loses putting multiple species of corydoras together is far from ideal. That shop or shop assistant has not given you very good information.

 

Hi,

Thank for all for the help!

I did acclimate them before adding them to the tank. When they were still in the bag, I left the bag in the tank to match the temperature. After that, I put them in a small container with the store water, and add some of the tank water. Waited 10 mins, then added some more tank water. Did this 3 times before adding them into the tank.

As for cycling the tank, I didn't realize I had to add ammonia as part of the cycling process. I thought the filter pads and the biometer from the filter was going to do that for me. Is it too late to save my other 2 corys? If I continue to put in some algae wafer everyday and let it dissolve to create ammonia, will that help? How often should I do a water change if I go with this method? Thank you so much!

 

Ask the shop if you can return the fish.
If not you will be finishing the building of the colonies of bacteria with fish in the tank . Called a “ fish in cycle ” .
As soon as possible , right now if it’s convenient remove and replace 45% of the water. Replace with temperature matched conditioned water.

The fish poop will soon become ammonia. They breathe out ammonia . No need to add more dry food to make more ammonia. Just the fish waste is more than enough. Even a small amount of ammonia is toxic.

Add conditioner to all new water.

 

Almost every tank I've spun up has been some variation on a fish-in-cycle so don't let that scare you off. The catch is, you have to test daily and you have to do water changes...probably daily, to keep the ammonia levels in check while the bb establish themselves in your tank, filter, etc.

I use Seachem Prime as my water conditioner and new tanks get a dose of API QuickStart. Substitute to whatever you have on hand as I have used TopFin Water conditioner, Jungle Start Rite, API Aqua Essentials, and others.

Potentially you could be in for a few weeks of solid water changes. By solid I mean small water changes daily.

A 10 gallon is really too small to keep cories unless they're the small pygmy cories....maybe pandas as mine didn't get too big.

 

Got it. I'm not at home right now, but I will do a water change as soon as I get home. Will do another water test and try to do a 15% water change everyday. I use Seachem Prime as my conditioner and I'll be sure to use them on every water change.

The guy at the fish store said my 10 gallon was fine, so I guess he wasn't the most informative person. I'll probably shop somewhere else. I'll look into pygmy or panda cories in the future when I can get my water cycled, or I may just try a betta instead. Thank you guys for all the help!

 

Many of us have fallen victim to the advice of pet store employees, it happens. I'm sorry that you lost so many fish. Good job acclimating! I usually use the bag method too, but I have always had ph that is much higher then that of the petstores, so I acclimate for 60-90 minutes. If you have fish shipped to you, Or for any reason, the fish are in the bag for longer then 6 hours, do not use the bag method to acclimate, take them out of the bag and pour them into a container with a wide opening and acclimate them there, also add some Seachums prime for good measure. because ammonia builds up dangerously after that amount of time. The fish are ok in a sealed bag, otherwise, they couldn't be shipped, but once you open the bag it gets bad fast.

Pygmy cories(Corydoras pygmaeus) can live in a 10 gallon, but I would not put the larger dwarf cories like pandas in a 10 gallon.