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A couple days ago, I noticed one of my six bronze corys had a tattered tail fin, and his "whiskers" were gone. I've got a link to the best picture I could get, if you look close, you can see his tail damage (my camera always wants to focus on the front of the glass.) You need to paste it into you address bar.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/Beefshank/sickcat.jpg

I seperated him, and added melefix. Unfortunetly he passed away on the second day of meds. His appearence didnt' change until he died.

I had thought maybe he had been in a fight, as he didn't have white spots, and did have what looked like it could be a small injury on his body (the side not in the pic).

The day after I seperated him, I saw another cat missing his "whiskers"! I don't always see them all, so it could have happened at the same time. This one looked and acted perfectly normal except for the missing whiskers. That was 3 days ago.

Today, he still acts fine, but I've noticed one of his pectoral fins is damaged. It almost looks a little melted at the end. A little of it is missing, and it's white. IF he were plastic, I would say somebody put a lighter under the fin for a couple seconds. I also noticed one slightly swollen white spot on the leading edge of his tail. Just one. The fin may have been damaged for a few days, but the white spot is definately new.

My water conditions are:

Ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 20
ph 7.2
temp 78f

I am going to seperate him, but am looking for advice on what to treat him with. The only visable problem both fish shared was the missing "whiskers".

thanks for you time,
-Dennis



Last edited by Beefshank at 21-Nov-2004 15:02

Last edited by Beefshank at 21-Nov-2004 15:03

Last edited by Beefshank at 21-Nov-2004 15:04

clickable

These "whiskers" you are referring to are actualy called barbels. There are many reasons for missing barbels, the most common being poor water quality, a rough substrate, or some type of fungus. Since you're water quality seems fine, I'm leaning towards some sort of fungus...is there anything else in the tank that could be a bully? Are they new cories, and if so, did you quarantine them before putting them in your tank? What's the substrate? What size tank?

I recomend moving the whole school to a hospital tank, and treating with Maracyn Plus...you might want to double check that it's catfish safe though. HTH

Last edited by FerretFanatic at 21-Nov-2004 15:08

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

No new cories. The substrate is medium size, and they've all been on it for at least 6 months. The tank is 60gal. There were no bully-ish fish in the tank when I noticed the problem. The closest things I have are a dwarf Gaurami, and a moonlight. The thing is, the dwarf was suffering from constipation, and wasn't interested in anybody. And the moonlight was in the quarantine tank so he wouldn't pick on the constipated fish. So the only way one of them could have done it was if it had happened several days before I noticed it. But I doubt it as I NEVER saw them pick on a catfish. Not even once.

Fungal huh? Ok, I'll go read about the med. thanks!

Any additional opinions?

thanks,
-Dennis


Last edited by Beefshank at 21-Nov-2004 17:20

Ok, it's been a little over a week, and I treated all the cories with Fungus Cure, and Triple Sulfa bacterial cure.

When they went in the hospital tank, 2 had lost their barbels and a little bit of fins, and 3 seemed fine.

During the treatment, nobody seemed to get worse.

Now the medicine is out, and the 2 sickest ones seem to be showing body slime, which they didn't show before. The three heathly ones still appear healthy.

And just now, while I was typing this, I saw 4 of the 5 (not the sickest one) start chasing each other around and forming kinda of "Catfish ball" racing around the tank. It looks like they are trying to clean each other, but it's hard to tell. This is much more active then the normal schooling behavior they always had before.

I'm not sure what to do next.

-medicate just the 2 with the body slime, and if so, with what?
-put the healthy 3 back in the big tank,
-put the healthy 3 in another seperate tank (I'm out of tanks, but could buy another)
-wait and see what happens to all five,

I don't want to medicate any more than is nessesary. So more advice would be much appreciated.

thanks,
-Dennis

NEW INFO!

in the hour sense I wrote this, the fish I would have called the second sickest one, has membrane bubbles on his mouth! According to the meds, it could be cottom mouth for triple sulfa, or mouth fugus, for fungus cure. Both show the extact same illustration. I am going to seperate the 2 sickest ones, but I am amazed how quickly this happened!



Last edited by Beefshank at 30-Nov-2004 19:48

The three healthy ones are in their own tank now.

About 2 3 hours after the "mouth bubbles" appeared, they were gone.

Now it's the next day, and the sickest fish has some white spots, but they are not what pictures I've seen of Ick look like, they are larger, and there is only about 5 on his whole body. They don't rub against anything, they don't have clamped fins, just slimy skin with the 5 big spots. If it is Ick, I have Quick Cure, but I have read that Malachite Green is really bad for catfish. What treatment would be good?

Here is a pic of the white areas:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/Beefshank/newsickcory.jpg

again, you have to paste it into your browser.

Thanks again, I hope somebody has some advice.

-Dennis



Last edited by Beefshank at 01-Dec-2004 18:06