Julii Cory looking very thin

I noticed one of my poor JuliI cories is very thin. It's stomach is almost sullen. Is there a way I can get more food to the bottom of the tank for my cories? I feed them shrimp pellets and I make sure some of the flakes sink, but I'm afraid the pellets might be too large and they won't last long enough on the bottom to soften up. Should I try soaking them before hand? Or is there a smaller shrimp pellet option? I'm not sure I'll be able to fatten up the currently thin Cory, but I would like to prevent further cories from starving. Also, do algae wafers provide any type of food supplement or anything for cories? The ones I have get soft quite fast. I know they aren't good for a staple diet, but if it's just enough to make sure that all six cories are getting enough I could feed them those in addition to shrimp pellets.

 

HikarI makes a good sinking wafer for bottom feeders. Its basically like time release, or slow release, they don't disintegrate so fast, but rather they soften very slowly over a long period of time. Regarding Algae wafers, there's little nutritional value for cories in plant/algae based foods. While a little bit won't hurt them to have, it doesn't do them much good. Bloodworms are a good supplementary food for them aside from sinking wafers and pellets. For freeze dried, just pre soak them so thell sink. You can even inject them with a turkey baster to get them rapidly to the bottom.

 

I feed my (false?) JuliI cories and they seem to love it.

The pellets are designed to be sort of hard, so they will last a while (at least 30 minutes) when you drop them. I have 6 cories and 7 kuhlI loaches. I drop in about 4 pellets a day and they seem fine. I don't presoak my pellets (though they do expand to 20% bigger after spending a bit of time in the water.

If I want to make sure only the cories and loaches get them, I drop them at night time so the non-bottom feeders won't be able to get to them.

I do feed my cories algae wafers once in a while, but it is messy and cories are meat eaters so the wafers are not a good long term solution.

I'm not quite clear on why one of your corries is starving while the other 5 are not. Is the one starving one not going to compete for the pellets? Cories are usually very nice and they don't push other cories out of the way for food.

 

I do feed frozen bloodworms once a week as a treat for all my fish. Maybe I should up that to twice a week? And would the bottom feeder wafers be in conjunction with the sinking shrimp pellets? I do drop an algae wafer in every other day for my snails, so I don't want to have too much going on down there (my MTS Pop is out of control lol)

 

I alternate between the sinking pellets and wafers.

 

I feed my (false?) JuliI cories and they seem to love it.

The pellets are designed to be sort of hard, so they will last a while (at least 30 minutes) when you drop them. I have 6 cories and 7 kuhlI loaches. I drop in about 4 pellets a day and they seem fine. I don't presoak my pellets (though they do expand to 20% bigger after spending a bit of time in the water.

If I want to make sure only the cories and loaches get them, I drop them at night time so the non-bottom feeders won't be able to get to them.

I do feed my cories algae wafers once in a while, but it is messy and cories are meat eaters so the wafers are not a good long term solution.

I'm not quite clear on why one of your corries is starving while the other 5 are not. Is the one starving one not going to compete for the pellets? Cories are usually very nice and they don't push other cories out of the way for food.

I'm not worried about the non bottom feeders as competition. I have another bottom feeder that eats the shrimp pellets whole and is also nocturnal (but will gladly eat at any time of the day) and I'm really not sure why only one is thin. All the others are plump and happy. Maybe food isn't the issue then? I really don't know why only one would be having trouble but I usually feed every other day different fish. Like, one day is bottom feeders and the next is the top/middle feeders because they will overlap on food (excess flakes sink for the cories and literally everyone in the tank goes NUTS for the veggie rounds and shrimp pellets lol)
The single Cory doesn't look sick or have red gills or anything other than it being rather thin. Poor baby I'm going to be adding more plants tomorrow though so if it is my other big boy catfish picking on some of the more adventurous cories or something that will help. Although he mostly keeps to himself since he has a VERY nice driftwood cave with little holes to hide in.
I will compare the API and hikarI sinking foods. I'm pretty picky with what I feed my fish, though. It's all mostly omega 1, live flightless fruit flies (for the Bettas), frozen bloodworms, and tetra crisps because I hate flake food. A lot of other foods have too many fillers and are all just "fish meal". Which is okay because that's part of a fishes diet, but I like to see some other stuff in there too. Maybe I should just make my own fish food lol.

 

I would target feed him/them via turkey baster or pipette frozen blood worms daily, once he is filled out, reduce to every other day. Are his whiskers intact? could he be having trouble locating food? A cory only scavenges because they have been assigned this duty, they require meaty food just for them.I am sure that he will recover with your continued care.

 

I have another bottom feeder that eats the shrimp pellets whole and is also nocturnal

Is there somewhere in the tank where you can put the food in a way that the big bottom feeder can't get to it? Like under a thick thicket of plants, some decoration, or under a cave? If you don't have those things, perhaps put the food in a plastic tube (like the ones in your siphon) or a small water bottle, anything that only cories can get into.

 

I think this one is ill. I'd crumble the pellets. Corys are able to find te tiniest parts without any problem.
Keeps them busy for quite some time as well. Other fish don't bother.

 

Did you get this cory from a big box store?

 

I got them from the store that I work at. The one that is ill is one of the cories I've had since starting the tank up, though. I'll try using a turkey baster to make sure that one gets food. The barbels are all intact, the only behavioral thing is that it sits on top of an Anubias leaf towards the top of my tank.

 

I got them from the store that I work at. The one that is ill is one of the cories I've had since starting the tank up, though. I'll try using a turkey baster to make sure that one gets food. The barbels are all intact, the only behavioral thing is that it sits on top of an Anubias leaf towards the top of my tank.

Not a good sign !!!

 

Here's a few pictures of it up on the Anubias.



He's just so thin... I'm afraid he's going to die soon

 

The redness (prob. Bacterial) worries me.

 

My coworker says that it could be an internal parasite. He said to try soaking some peas in aquarium salt and feed it to them (or even just give the whole tank flakes soaked in aquarium salt). That worked for him when he had a fish with parasites. Made them poop it all out and it cleared up. Thoughts?

 

As DoubleDutch has said that redness is indicative of a bacterial infection & salted peas even if you could get him to eat them wouldn't help.
I'd try a broad spectrum antibiotic & hope he isn't too far gone.

 

Okay. I've never used anything like that. I need some more help with what to get

 

I can't help with brand names as I'm in the UK & we can't get over the counter antibiotics, hopefully someone in the US can chime in.

 

Okay, well I should just look for something that says "full spectrum antibiotic"?

 

I don't know how up to date this thread is but you may be familiar with some of the brand names

 

But think it's best to treat it in a separate tank. It will affect the filterbacteria !!

 

Good catch DD, I forgot to mention that

 

Hmm. I have a 2.5 I need to clean out. I can move him in there.

 

Okay, does anyone know if API melafix will work? Otherwise I'm going to a fish store later that sells all the seachem products

 

Melafix is too light to cure serious bacterial issues !!

 

Okay, what do you think is better? And should I treat all my cories just in case?

 

I used Melafix and Pimafix together for 7 days. It seemed to do the trick, but it's hard to say, still need more time to see how everyone does. My issue is it's hard to find invertebrate safe meds.

 

Alright, so do you think I should isolate the Cory and try using both?

 

If your gonna QT it for treatment id go with something stronger. My options were limited as I was treating the tank and have inverts.

 

Melafix en Pimafix will work for secundairy external infections. For this internal infection something stronger os needed. I would isolate it.

 

Okay. I'll ask my local fish only store what they suggest. Poor baby.

 

If your gonna QT it for treatment id go with something stronger. My options were limited as I was treating the tank and have inverts.

Almost all antibiotics are invert safe. It's things like formalin, mal. green, and copper based meds that are a problem.

Honestly I suspect this is viral, not bacterial, but if you want to treat it with antibacterial meds, kanamycin is your best bet.

 

I can't remember all the names off the top of my head, but there were quite a few meds that were copper free that still warned against use with inverts. So many out there hard to keep track of them all.

 

Almost all antibiotics are invert safe. It's things like formalin, mal. green, and copper based meds that are a problem.

Honestly I suspect this is viral, not bacterial, but if you want to treat it with antibacterial meds, kanamycin is your best bet.

What makes you think it is viral junebug

 

What makes you think it is viral junebug

The symptoms match exactly a confirmed case of Iridovirus in one of my friends' skunk cories. Apparently this is the most common presentation of the virus in SA catfish.

 

Ok, that would be quite interesting. Do you think these are Asian-bred amd caught the virus overthere (just as DG's)?

 

Alright, so I have these three products. Is the fish mox good to treat this Cory?
I also have a Cory in my tank that has some tattered fins (from its companions in the store) can I use the melafix on the entire tank to treat him?










Oh, and here's two more shots of the Cory.

 

Melafix and Pimafix are useless right now. Fish mox is better, so I'd use that.
DoubleDutch I'm not sure if the fish are contracting it at the Asian breeders or if it's spreading at the fish farms here in the US. Still waiting on replies from the biologist from Petsmart and the folks at the food fish farms.

 

Melafix and Pimafix are useless right now. Fish mox is better, so I'd use that.
DoubleDutch I'm not sure if the fish are contracting it at the Asian breeders or if it's spreading at the fish farms here in the US. Still waiting on replies from the biologist from Petsmart and the folks at the food fish farms.

For my QT tank, I have a spare heater but not a spare filter or air pump. Is that okay? :/

 

The symptoms match exactly a confirmed case of Iridovirus in one of my friends' skunk cories. Apparently this is the most common presentation of the virus in SA catfish.

Junebug, if it is Iridovirus what meds are used on it. Last time I looked into it there wasn't anything, antiviral for aqua culture use for iridovirus.