False Julii Mystery Illness: Does Anyone Know What’s Going On?

Hello all,

I have a bit of a mystery going on in my 20 gallon tank that I’m hoping someone can help me solve.
It’s a lot of info, I hope I explained the situation in a way that makes sense.


I have a 20 gallon long that is well established and has had no new additions for a year and a half.

I’ll list stock and parameters at the end.


2 days ago during the weekly water change, to my horror I siphoned up the dismembered head of one of my Corys that half caught in the filter intake (The rest of the dead Cory is no where to be seen so I assume the other fish ate him).
Just a day prior all the Corys where accounted for and showed no signs of illness.

After discovering the remains of my poor Cory, I spent a long time watching the other fish, all of them seemed to be well expect one Cory appeared to have a humped back. However, she was behaving normally so I finished the water change.

The next morning (yesterday) when I went to feed the fish, I found her being held in place against the filter intake suction I guess. I unplugged the filter and she fell to the bottom and was breathing rapidly.

By now I was thinking maybe the suction from the filter intake was too strong. I plugged the filter back in and put my fingers on it. The suction is in fact very weak. Also they’ve had the same filter filter for the last 1 1/2 years with no issue. I have added a pre-intake sponge just incase.

The Cory made it theough the night but still has a humped back. She also broke the spines of her dorsal fin so the fin does not stand up unless she’s moving. She seems to get out of breath easily and is a bit tired but is trying her best to go about her day. Her back still looks humped however. I’m wondering if it is dropsy. However, I’ve seen a Cory with dropsy before and although they don’t pinecone quite the same as a fish with scales they often have bulging eyes and a swollen abdomen, mine does not have either. Before I could not tell the Corys apart easily based on their over all shape. They used to all have the same silhouette with the females only being slightly rounder than the males but the difference was subtle. Now because of teh jumped back I can pick her out from the other from across the room. I’ll attach some pictures below.

Im thinking of doing an epsom salt soak for the effected Cory in case it is oedema.


Tank Info

20 gallon long
Aqua clear 50 (with flow turned down and baffled)
Ammonia (0ppm)
Nitrite (0ppm)
Nitrate (always between 10-20ppm)
pH 6.8
Temp (75-76F)

Stock:
1x Bolivian Ram
4x Zebra Danios
4x False Julii Cory

(Btw I know this isn’t enough Corys for a school I’ve been searching for more for months)


Picture 1 and 2 are the effected Cory. Picture 3 is of a tank mate to show the shape the effected Cory usually is. You can see the silhouette of the effected Cory has changed quite a bit.

 

From the pics it looks more like a bad case of malnutrition to me than anything. It's less that the back is hunched, than that the stomach is pinched/caved in.

Malnutrition can have more than one cause - it could be what you're feeding (corys do need protein, they aren't meant to survive on algae wafers), it could be disease affecting the gastrointestinal tract, or could be parasites (although that is less likely if nothing (including new plants or live foods) has been added in the past year.)

Are you sure they're getting enough food?

 

From the pics it looks more like a bad case of malnutrition to me than anything. It's less that the back is hunched, than that the stomach is pinched/caved in.

Malnutrition can have more than one cause - it could be what you're feeding (corys do need protein, they aren't meant to survive on algae wafers), it could be disease affecting the gastrointestinal tract, or could be parasites (although that is less likely if nothing (including new plants or live foods) has been added in the past year.)

Are you sure they're getting enough food?

Thanks for the reply!

They get 3 different flake foods, brine shrimp granulate, bottom feeder tabs, Repashy and a variety of frozen foods. I do target feed with a turkey baster to make sure everyone eats their share.

If I look at them from eye level the other Corys are decently plump as are the danios and the ram looks good too. I don’t think their malnourished but maybe the Cory effected is burning more calories through this ordeal?

I did an epsom salt dip for her last night for 30 minutes. She still isn’t quite right but she did perk up a little bit.

Could internal parasites alter the body shape of 2 Corys and kill one in under 48 hours? I havnt dealt with much in the way of illness so far. They where all totally fine then boom, one with a hunch back one dead. Fortunately still no other fish have gotten sick.

I appreciate the reply!

 

Disease or parasites could, yes. Still unlikely that it's actually happening only in 48 hours, more likely that it wouldn't be as easily noticed until it has gotten far enough along to be that obvious. Meaning, the two could have been ill for some time, but only got to the really noticeable point in that 48-hour period.

Parasites are generally more often the cause of something like that (because they are taking the nutrition directly out of the fish), but if you haven't added anything in a year and a half, I don't know how any would have gotten in - unless you have added something else that they could have come in on (water that came from a source that could harbor them, live foods, plants, etc.) Or unless the fish has just been living with them all this time, and it only now got this bad because of the fish's age, or an increase in the total parasite load, or stress.

It's up to you whether you want to try to treat them for anything when there's no way (short of a necropsy) to actually tell whether there's a parasite issue, or a disease, or even just old age in the fish (if they were already adults when you got them). There is no one right answer here, because you can leave them be and the rest can be fine without you doing anything at all (they successfully resist a disease or parasite on their own, or there was none to begin with). Or you can leave them be and they all die one by one. Or you can treat for something and they die because it's not treating for the right thing. Or you can treat them and it wasn't necessary because they resisted it on their own. That is probably the biggest frustration when it comes to fish illnesses, because there are so many that aren't straightforward and easily diagnosed like ich can be.

 

Disease or parasites could, yes. Still unlikely that it's actually happening only in 48 hours, more likely that it wouldn't be as easily noticed until it has gotten far enough along to be that obvious. Meaning, the two could have been ill for some time, but only got to the really noticeable point in that 48-hour period.

Parasites are generally more often the cause of something like that (because they are taking the nutrition directly out of the fish), but if you haven't added anything in a year and a half, I don't know how any would have gotten in - unless you have added something else that they could have come in on (water that came from a source that could harbor them, live foods, plants, etc.) Or unless the fish has just been living with them all this time, and it only now got this bad because of the fish's age, or an increase in the total parasite load, or stress.

It's up to you whether you want to try to treat them for anything when there's no way (short of a necropsy) to actually tell whether there's a parasite issue, or a disease, or even just old age in the fish (if they were already adults when you got them). There is no one right answer here, because you can leave them be and the rest can be fine without you doing anything at all (they successfully resist a disease or parasite on their own, or there was none to begin with). Or you can leave them be and they all die one by one. Or you can treat for something and they die because it's not treating for the right thing. Or you can treat them and it wasn't necessary because they resisted it on their own. That is probably the biggest frustration when it comes to fish illnesses, because there are so many that aren't straightforward and easily diagnosed like ich can be.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough left of the body to do a necropsy.

Being in Canada I don’t have access to much in the way of medication for my fish. I think for now I’m going to just observe very very closely. I’ll also continue the epsom salt baths for the unwell Cory because it did seem to perk her up and she was a lot more active after.

Fingers crossed she pulls through but if she isn’t able to, I’ll do a necropsy.

It‘s definitely not a very straightforeward situation, but I really appreciate you helping me troubleshoot