Which cories have the hardiest barbels?

I've obsessively cleaned my smooth pea gravel, and 2 three-lined cories still lost their barbels and died. One even lost part of his snout so you could somewhat see into his mouth. I've switched to black diamond blasting sand, and one of the three-lined cories is still very very gradually losing its barbels.

I'm SO FRUSTRATED. And sad. Is there another species whose barbels are a lot tougher? I read one person on Reddit claiming that peppered cories and sterbaI have sturdier barbels than trilineatus by far based, but aside from that, I can't get any sort of ranking.

Please help. My babies are so cute, and I can't stand to lose another one, or any additional cories I buy in the future.

Tank Stats
Size: 20 gallon tall
Filter: Aquaclear 30
Plants: Anubias, java fern, and aponogeton (lightly planted)
Water: always between 0/0/20 or 0/0/40. Nitrate from the tap is always around 10 ppm.
Temp: 77
Animals: 1 betta fish, 3 red cherry shrimp, 2 corydoras trilineatus (note that I highly doubt the betta is causing any stress - the cories frequently nap next to him and never show any kind of avoidant behavior around him)

 

What do you feed them? Did they show any other symptoms? Sounds like a bacterial infection.

 

I feed them HikarI sinking wafers. They don't really show behavioral symptoms until 2-3 days before they die. They'll stop eating and move much less. The hours before they die, they barely move at all, but when they do, it's these really sad, uncontrolled spastic motions. :/

 

Coradee will definitely know more than me on this. It could be a bad batch you got. Since you changed to sand that will help them out a lot.

 

Sorry you're having this problem, it sounds like a rough go for everyone involved.

How much water are you removing during each change, and how often are you doing PWCs?

 

Maybe mouth rot. I'd think of medicating as well as a big water change followed by lots of frequent PWC's.

 

I do 40-50% water changes once a week. :| I was worried that changing water too frequently might upset the fish. I changed 50% of my betta's water every 2-3 days for about 10 days in preparation for vacation one time, and he seemed more unhappy and motionless than he usually was.

 

Seems odd, you're doing everything right in that respect. Pea gravel shouldn't have done that and BDBA shouldn't either. Maybe one of your decorations is cutting them? I'd run my fingers along all surfaces in there and see if there's something sharp.

I know that you have nitrates in your tap but if you could add some floating plants like dwarf water lettuce they will suck those right up and make your water a little cleaner for your friends. Any plants will help but floating plants are best.

 

I have about 20 big leaves of Anubias, a java fern with maybe 15 long leaves, and two aponogetons, I feel like that should be enough to suck up all the nitrates, but somehow it isn't. I even feed them in a glass dish, so I know it's not excess food.

And it can't be my decorations because I go over all my decor meticulously with sandpaper for my betta - he has beautiful, perfect fins now compared to when I didn't know I was supposed to do this.

-sigh- I think I'll just chalk it up to that mysterious, contagious illness some cory keepers seem to suspect. I've read many, many, many threads on barbel erosion, and the situations that stuck out the most to me were when a group of cories were doing fine for years until a few new cories were added, and suddenly the original cories started losing barbels. It would explain why some people have issues with gravel and some don't, or why some succeed with sand and some still don't.

 

There are a number of things that can cause barbel loss, sharp/rough or dirty substrate, high nitrites/nitrates/ammonia, nicks or cuts leading to bacterial infections, it's often hard to pin it down to just one cause especially where only one or two corys are affected.
As for which species have sturdier barbels than others I really don't think there are any.
I keep/ have kept quite a few species on varying substrates & have never found any differences between their barbels, maybe I've just been lucky to have not had any lose their barbels.
I'm sorry you're experiencing this & I can only say keep doing what you're doing in keeping the substrate clean & the nitrates as low as possible.

 

Thanks coradee! I guess I'll consider a generally hardier cory like the peppered cory once my betta passes.