Ill Panda Cory

Hi All,

I have a panda cory who does not look well, his rear fin (I'm sure there is a proper name for it) has suddenly almost disappeared. Photos attached hopefully.... Its a tank with 7 panda's (the rest are all fine), 4 zebra danios, 2 honey gouramis and 7 cardinal tetras. We went away for a couple weekends and so our cleaning regime slipped a bit (20% every week normally, we did roughly 20% every 10-11 days for a few weeks due to being away).

Apart from not looking too great, he seems fine and is moving freely as much as the others, feeding etc. Does anyone have any ideas what is wrong with him and what we can do?

Any advice greatly received. Thank you.

well its either been eaten or is fin rot. either way, you need to treat it. do you have a hospital tank? need to know your water stats too, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate. temp. how big is the tank? what filtration do you have?

also, you need to be changing the substrate really, as sharp stones can cause barbel damage in corys (and therefore could cause a bacterial infection)

maybe a mod could move this to the emergency section, as this is what it is.

Agreed with the above, could be fin rot, but hard to tell.

I would suggest getting/using some stress coat, or any fish medicine designed to help fins heal.

If you have a hospital/quarantine tank, move the fish over, otherwise you'll have to treat the whole tank.

I agree possibly fin rot probably due to poor water quality

Test your water for ammonia & nitrite etc.

Waterchanges is a good way to go if your not certain.

Thanks for all the responses - very helpful. The tank has a 75 litre capacity, with a Eheim Ecco Pro 130 canister filter. Test just done gives normal results (Cl 0, ph 7, KH 4-5, Gh 16, N02 0-1, N03 10), but will keep up the water changes though.

I don't have a hospital tank, is it worth getting one (seen the notes in the emergency section on what is required)? Will the stress coat be bad for the other fish or will the stress of isolating the cory to treat him be ok? Will get some stress coat from the LFS asap (assuming that is the correct medication).

On a separate note, I will look into changing the substrate at the weekend to purely sand as you recommend (just done some research - the LFS originally said the small gravel should be ok for pandas).

I use stress coat in my main tank, doesn't seem to do any harm.

Just done some research - we already use and have AquaSafe to remove chlorine from the water. Does this do the same as Stress Coat?

Stress coat does work as a dechlorinator.

But it also does others, whether it adds to the salinity or releases a natural tonic I have no idea to be honest.

But apparently it's "Reduces stress by up to 40%, scientifically proven"... so, who knows.

It seems to work for my fish, helps them destress, and helps tatty fins heal up.