Cory Cats Dying

[blang]

My 90 gallon planted tank is about 11 years old. About 2 1/2 months ago I purchased two healthy looking cory cats. Within two weeks one of the new cory cats died. Shortly after that about every 3 days I kept on losing more. So far I've lost 7 cory cats. One day they are fine and the next day the fins are damaged and within 36 hours they are dead. All my other fish are fine. My parameters are fine except I do struggle with high nitrates. I've been doing water changes every 1 or 2 weeks to bring them down to a level of no more than 20. During the period I lost most of my cory cats, the nitrates were around 20-40. My ph is on the higher side (7.6) but it is consistent. The only aggressive fish I have three yoyo loaches (I've had for 10 years) or one Kribensis for a little over a year. I've medicated with Paraguard for 14 days and during that period plus 1 1/2 weeks after, there were no deaths. Today I lost another one. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[nirbhao]

How many cory cats did you have to start with? Has it only been new fish, or has your established cory population been affected?

Sounds terrible.

 

[blang]

Only one of the new cory cats died all the rest were established. I have one of the new ones living and three older ones. One is even about 10 years old. I am just sick about this and don't know what to do. The LFS are useless to talk to. I restarted the Paraguard until I get a better suggestion on what to do.

 

[nirbhao]

Oh man. My purely lay eye, it sounds like the new cats brought something nasty with them. But, I mean, obviously, right?

That sucks so much.

 

[blang]

But it's been about couple of months with lots of water changes, when will it stop? I wish I knew what to do?

 

[coralbandit]

I am not well liked for saying this so often but?
Columnaris.
There are so many variations that people argue they don't have it or someone else will say it is not...Your fish will continue to die.
They will all look fine and then you will clearly know who is next.
Could be as fast as a day after that.Mine never looked like the typical cotton mouth/saddle backed 'fin rot' columnaris fish..But it is what they had...
The standard treatment now is kannaplex[seachem] and furan2[API] both together in the display tank.
I cured mine with my swordtails 5 + years ago with potassium permanganate.

I believe my favorite link is gone but I will look.
Unfortunately the new fish did bring in the problem and now your OLDER fish are to weak to fight it off.
If a fish even looks funny euth it to save time and remove more of the bacteria quicker.
Once a fish has eaten an infected dead fish the story line is pretty much set.Unfortunately columnaris has a wicked life cycle and a most patient attack mode.
Agricultural articles are considering it 'annual' in the catfish industry costing millions.
Columnaris loves clean water and heat.
You have to keep your tank clean but don't elevate the heat as it will be contradictory.
Here we go!

Finally, since Columnaris is an opportunistic aerobic infection even a well maintained aquarium can suffer from a Columnaris infection with even a slight opportunity for infection (assuming this bacterial pathogen is present). A common portal for a Columnaris infection is simply an older and weaker fish. Old age allows many opportunistic infections to get a foothold in at least the fish in question
Taken from;
Fish Columnaris | Fungus & Saprolegnia | Treatment & Prevention
and one more;
http://www.myaquariumclub.com/columnaris-and-what-i-have-learned...-1689.html

 

[blang]

But why is it only affecting my cory cats? Only a couple of them were older. The others were 1-2 years old?

 

[Potluck]

I see no symptoms of columnaris, with columnaris you will have white fuzz on the fish or red sores, I had columnaris a year ago and my fish were covered in white fungus, im not saying it isn't but looks to me it's not, I see no symptoms of it, if the fins were damaged you have a fish beating them up and yoyo's do get aggressive.

 

[coralbandit]

I see no symptoms of columnaris, with columnaris you will have white fuzz on the fish or red sores, I had columnaris a year ago and my fish were covered in white fungus, im not saying it isn't but looks to me it's not, I see no symptoms of it, if the fins were damaged you have a fish beating them up and yoyo's do get aggressive.

This IS EXACTLY what I started my paragraph saying....
Pleas read the my aquairium link on type 1 which has NO SYMPTOMS....

 

[Brookster123]

Anything that aggressive?? What else could it be?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[Potluck]

Okay the post keeps disappearing lol,

Here we go again with the 3rd time of me trying to post, the OP has stated that it's every 3 days or so after they notice gill damage, as I said I'm not saying it isn't but type 1 will wipe out a stock in 24 hours when I had it I treated my tank with the meds people on here said to use and my fish still died Over a 5 month period.

So to the OP, if it is indeed columnaris you need to do a few things, if your tank is on the warmer side you need to gradually lower it to 75 as columnaris spreads at a slower rate at a lower tank temp, but spreads super fast at a Warmer tank temp

Second is treating with kanaplex and metroplex Reason I say metroplex is furan 2 kills BB Really fast and can be overdosed where as metroplex is a much safer med, also remember treating with these meds can cause kidney damage so if you go this route dose every 3 days not every one.

yoyo loaches killing them which is very plausible as I have witnessed loaches killing other fish just cause they want to, I'll give you an example of an incident I had.... I bought 2 BN to go with my Calico BN I already had in the tank, woke up the next day they were dead my LFS refunded me for them I bought another one acclimated it put it in the tank with the lights off and I immediately saw my Calico go attack it, did some research and found pleco's will attack other fish that look like them, when I posted about it I was told it was "columnaris" it wasn't it was my BN killing them, watch the tank with either lunar blues (if you have them) or low light make sure you're out if sight and see if the yoyo's are attacking them.

Third is one you will not like to hear but it isn't mandatory, when you see an ill fish the best thing to do (from what people told me on here a year ago) is to euthanize it immediately, when I had columnaris the bacteria itself didn't kill half of my stock I euthanized most of them when I shouldn't have, I did however euthanize the ones that were pinecone scaled because there's no coming back from that so that was indeed a must.

You can do kanaplex +furan 2 just be make sure it's loach safe, and if you have inverts they have to be removed.

http://www.davidsaquariumadvice.com/newestfishdiseaseposts/2016/3/9/kanaplexmetroplexreviewed

 

[blang]

I have another sick fish. What's interesting is that their is no fin damage. I am thinking that fish may be attacking the sick ones because they are sick and I am not seeing that they are being nipped. This cory cat is very weak and swimming funny. I spoke to a manager at the fish store and he recommended dosing erythromycin to see if that takes care of the problem. I know this is really difficult because there is no clear cut signs on what it could be. Only have two cory cats left that are healthy

 

[coralbandit]

Okay the post keeps disappearing lol,

Here we go again with the 3rd time of me trying to post, the OP has stated that it's every 3 days or so after they notice gill damage, as I said I'm not saying it isn't but type 1 will wipe out a stock in 24 hours when I had it I treated my tank with the meds people on here said to use and my fish still died Over a 5 month period.

So to the OP, if it is indeed columnaris you need to do a few things, if your tank is on the warmer side you need to gradually lower it to 75 as columnaris spreads at a slower rate at a lower tank temp, but spreads super fast at a Warmer tank temp

Second is treating with kanaplex and metroplex Reason I say metroplex is furan 2 kills BB Really fast and can be overdosed where as metroplex is a much safer med, also remember treating with these meds can cause kidney damage so if you go this route dose every 3 days not every one.

yoyo loaches killing them which is very plausible as I have witnessed loaches killing other fish just cause they want to, I'll give you an example of an incident I had.... I bought 2 BN to go with my Calico BN I already had in the tank, woke up the next day they were dead my LFS refunded me for them I bought another one acclimated it put it in the tank with the lights off and I immediately saw my Calico go attack it, did some research and found pleco's will attack other fish that look like them, when I posted about it I was told it was "columnaris" it wasn't it was my BN killing them, watch the tank with either lunar blues (if you have them) or low light make sure you're out if sight and see if the yoyo's are attacking them.

Third is one you will not like to hear but it isn't mandatory, when you see an ill fish the best thing to do (from what people told me on here a year ago) is to euthanize it immediately, when I had columnaris the bacteria itself didn't kill half of my stock I euthanized most of them when I shouldn't have, I did however euthanize the ones that were pinecone scaled because there's no coming back from that so that was indeed a must.

You can do kanaplex +furan 2 just be make sure it's loach safe, and if you have inverts they have to be removed.

Treating Bacterial Diseases with Seachem Kanaplex & Metroplex — David's Aquarium Advice

Interesting link....Seachem advert?

The notion that any one disease will be picture perfect will never help anyone id or treat.

On the furan 2 killing bb the meds kill bacteria by size ,in that smaller die first.
The larger bacteria dieing is necessary IMO to kill the columnaris bacteria....

 

[blang]

At this point I am going to continue with the erythromycin that I started today for the next 4 days. The sick cory is moving around and hanging in there so I am praying that he somehow pulls through. I will give everyone an update after the 4 day treatment is completed.

 

[Potluck]

If it is columnaris it needs a gram negative med, most use kanaplex /furan 2 at the same time, that updated link even though it recommends 2 products by seachem states they don't know why when mixed together it is a recommended treatment for columnaris, thus being said when i had it furan2+kanaplex did not work, I had to euthanize fish cause their kidneys were affected and got pine coneing which isn't reversible.


Did you at least lower the tank temp to 75?

 

[blang]

My temp is 78.6 and the heater is off. I don't know if it will go that low but by the morning it should be I hope at least 2 degrees lower.

 

[roboticducks]

My Cory is dieing I think...

So this morning when I went to go feed my other fish I noticed I haven't seen my catfish around lately... Unfortunately I was in a rush to go catch my ride to work so I didn't have time to look for him. Fast forward to tonight, i remembered the cat fish again before bed and tried looking for him. I lifted my ornament cave I have in my tank and noticed he was lodged inside, still alive mind you, but he lost all of his top fins and his tail looks broken too, so it's making him swim on his side... Is there anything I can do for him? Will he survive this?

Help.

(Btw sorry this is in someone's thread, idk how to make a new one lol)

 

[blang]

Unfortunately, I doubt he will survive. I would remove him and put him in another tank so the other fish don't pick on him. I am not knowledgable enough to recommend which medication would be best. Sorry to hear about your cory. I unfortunately, lost all of mine from a mysterious disease so I am in the process of slowly adding new ones but this time, quarantining them for three weeks before moving them to my main tank. Good luck with yours.