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well while doing a waterchange in the 75G today i noticed all my corys look like their mouths are inflamed. and on one corys his mouth is covred in blood. the substrate is tahitian moon sand. they have been in teh tank for 10 months. umm i'll do water tests and post results in a bit but here are a few pics of the corys. sry they aren't that good the corys kept hiding.



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Corys, by the very nature of the fish, are diggers...

It takes awhile for their barbels, because they are so close to their lips, to wear, tear and become infected.

Sand substrate, because it's abrasive and any substrate that is small and sharp will wear down the barbels right to their lips.

You can try a combination of Tetracycline, if available, and the ever popular anticeptic Melafix to try and heal the mouth area.

Most hobbyists fail to remove the fish from the host tank while treating and the main cause of the affliction, dangerous substrate, continues to harm the fish.

--garyroland.

alright then abrasive substrate would do the barbels.. explain the ragged finnage that Jdubs pointed out. several people in chat suggested bacterial finrot.

[span class="edited"][Edited by Megil Tel'Zeke 2004-06-30 16:52][/span]

You never mentioned any fin rot in your thread here...

I cannot, nor will I, be advised from the Chat Room about fish maladies.

Right now you have a major problem with damaged mouths, one looks fungused already.

Act now as I advised or lose the fish. It may already be too late by the looks of their mouths.

--garyroland.

k. will do and BTW i intend on changing the substrate to eco-complete by the end of summer , this was a decision prior to seeing the corys ill try to expedite the process. thxs for the advice.

Either I'm blind or something or gary has superhuman sight but I'm not seeing any fungus in any of those pictures. The mouth and barbel areas do look very inflamed though, and I can see the torn fin in the second picture. Whatever it is that's causing this inflammation I wouldn't blame it on the sand. In my experience, Tahitian moon sand is very fine and soft. I can't see it wearing down any barbels, but there might be something else in the tank that's causing it. If you can track the cause down, by all means remove it

For now let's say a week with a pimafix/melafix combination and quarantine the cories in at least a 10 gallon if you can. Even a plastic storage bin would work. That way you can prevent the spread of infection to your discus and have your cories separated in case they get worse and you need to start dosing something harder. It's also much cheaper to medicate a smaller tank. You'll want to keep the water really clean of course, so do 30-50% water changes during treatment every few days. In about a week, if you're not seeing improvement or if it's starting to look worse you might want to try a good antibiotic like furan-2. Since it's a problem with the mouth area, you might even want to think about medicating their food to hit it directly.

Bets of luck with them, and I wouldn't go writing them off.

The first pic shows a combination of smooth fungus and ulcerations on the mouth...

Any fine sand-like abrasive substrate will eventually wear away the delicate barbels on the lips of Corys.

The middle pic had something white on or behind the mouth of the fish that looks like fungus but may be just something behind the fish.

My Albinos and other species of Corys, about ten, have never had a barbel problem in the years I've had them. My substrate is comprised of rounded and smooth pebble-size stones.

Most, if not all, barbel problems start with damage, if not from the substrate then from a predator.

--garyroland.





[span class="edited"][Edited by garyroland 2004-07-01 11:32][/span]