Cory Catfish-HELP! IDEAS!

[ginamb]

Hi everyone,

I have had my freshwater aquarium for many months now. I have had bad batches of fish from petsmart, so I now consider myself somewhat 'experienced'

I have a cory catfish and an albino catfish.

They have both been some of my most active fish but until recently my cory catfish is not moving from one spot anymore. I had a sick gourami (I think he had DGD, was my second gourami that died from petsmart, exactly the same way as my first) he just recently died. Now my catfish won't leave that same area the gourami died in.

Do fish get depressed? My cory catfish is one of my favorite fish and will be so sad if he dies.

I do frequent water changes and test the water weekly, everything is good.


Any ideas on whats going on?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Corys are social fish and as such will do better if they have more of their own kind for company.

 

[ginamb]

I have 2 catfish- my gourami died; and now my Cory catfish seems sad

 

[Aiken Drum]

The more corys you have, the better they tend to do. 4 is better than 2. 6 is better than 4. Etc.

Social fish will make the best of things, if they dont have enough of their own kind, they will try to form groups with what they can. So, your fish could be stressed from losing one of its social group.

 

[ginamb]

Omg thank you. This makes me so so sad for him. Will go get him so new pals!

 

[Aiken Drum]

How big a tank do you have? A group of corys are great fun to keep. They are my favourite fish. 6 would be a good number to keep together if your tank is big enough.

 

[ginamb]

I have a 10 gallon, and only 2 catfish and 2 mollies, will definitely try and get a few! They are so so cute

 

[Aiken Drum]

Panda corys are a smaller species, 10g is on the small size for a group of corys, but pandas might work. If you are going to try another dwarf gourami i wouldn't add more than a couple of other small fish as well.

 

[Joe_D]

Cory are not really schooling fish but they do seem to like to be with at least one other of their own kind. This is even though they often ignore each other.... while other times they are more or less together.

I presently have two Panda Corys in my 10 gal tank but, I am looking for one more.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Cory are not really schooling fish but they do seem to like to be with at least one other of their own kind. This is even though they often ignore each other.... while other times they are more or less together.

I presently have two Panda Corys in my 10 gal tank but, I am looking for one more.

There is a difference between schooling and social. I agree that corys arent schooling fish, but they do better in larger numbers. They dont school, very few freshwater fish actually school.

Even when you went out of your way to find a thread discussing cory numbers, the thread you found showed that the common theme was that cory behaviour became more natural and stress levels reduced as numbers increased.

This thread and what the OP is seeing is an example of that.

 

[Tony30gal]

Is “shoaling” the word your looking for?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Is “shoaling” the word your looking for?

Shoaling is more tightly packed together than schooling.

 

[Joe_D]

I went out of my way to find a thread?
I find that a bit insulting.
This tread was just in the recent discussions routine on the site.... as it is now.
I did not search for anything.

Fact is, I have a lot of experience with Corys in the past and now
I am not some sort of novice.

Just two Corys can be fine .
However, if there are more than that they will sometimes feed together (as most all other animals do) but most of the time Corys go their own way.
Feeding sinking pellets to them do not scatter like flake foods etc, . So, because of this they will tend to feed together at times

I want to get one more simply because I have never wanted to get just two fish of most any kind in a community tank

BTW, what is natural behavior for a fish that for generation has been raised in glass boxes ?