Cory Cats with missing whiskers

[tissot]

I have a 20 gallon acrylic and noticed the 4 cats in the tank are missing their whiskers.

I think the water may be dissolving the whiskers, but I'm not sure.

Would be caused by a high nitrate level? Or is this what you would call ammonia burn?

I'm planning to do a 20% water change tonight and possibly every other 2 days if it's necessary.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

PH 7.1
Hardness 180
Alkalinity 60
Fresh Water 60
Nitrate 0.1
Nitrate 40ppm

 

[dreamsINdigital]

What kind of substrate do you have? If it's coarse, it might be why.

 

[WhiteDevil]

Im with dId on this one, my cories were always on sand and their barbells as well as my kuhlis are longer then average. They are on flourite now and havnt seemed to change much at all if any.

 

[tissot]

It shouldn't be the substrate

I use Eco-Complete Planted that's typically used for plant tanks. It's mixed with some small rounded river rocks.

I have another tank with larger cories and they're using the same substrate mixture and their whiskers are fine. That's when I decided something is wrong and wanted to see if any of you guys have a better idea.

My tank has been up for at least 2 years and is fully planted.

 

[cwt]

Could be the nitrates; 40ppm seems kinda high if your tank is planted. I test mine every so often and I've given up on the nitrate test in the planted tanks, because it never shows anything.

 

[WhiteDevil]

whats the ammonia results?

 

[dreamsINdigital]

Are you sure they didn't come from the store like that?

On a similar note, when I bought my 3 cory cats, I noticed that 2 of them have one pair of barbels, while the 3rd has 2 distinct pairs of barbels. The 3rd cory cat is also larger than the others. Does anyone know if the 3rd one has two pairs because it's larger, or do the smaller 2 only have one pair because they lost the other? They were in a sand substrate while in the store's tank.

 

[WhiteDevil]

they more then likely lost em, all 5 of mine in all sizes all same age have full barbells, there are like 3-4 pair on each cat.