Need help with pandas

Purchased 9 pandas, little guys between .5-.75”

Day three they started to get what I’m assuming is a fungal infection. White fuzz on them, started to lead to fin rot.

anyways, I started dosing pimafix right away, and a couple days later melafix that wasn’t available to me right away.
Those medications didn’t seem to do much. Problems got worse. In the last 2 days I lost 4 fish. Heartbreaking.

other things I did, 10-20% daily water changes since the fish went in.

dosing daily with seachem stability

also treating lightly with API‘S ich treatment

religiously checking water parameters average 3-4 times daily.

today, lost 3 fish. 2 in the morning when I woke up and found them, so I guess technically over night.

that led to removing some of the decor, they had lots of little hiding places before, which made it hard to track their health.

I left in some rocks for a place they can hide from current/light if they need.

did a 50% water change, replaced the medication doses and well as the daily dose.

found some other posts in this forum that recommended a salt dip. Did 2 today at a less concentrated mix as I know cories don’t like salt. They didn’t last long.

but some good news... between the salt dips, and medication, the remaining 5 seem to have rid themselves of some or most of the white fungus/fuzz. After being back in the tank for 3 hours, I’ve got one Cory, acting completely normal, swimming around, foraging, breathing normally, fins fully intact.
Another Cory, fins fully intact, more lethargic, breathing a bit heavy, but looks to be clear of the fuzz. Those are the two largest. The middlest guy, has started swimming around a little bit, foraging here and there a bit, but has a bit of his tail fin missing. The two smallest guys left, both have significant parts of their tail fins missing. Both are pretty lethargic.

only for the first three days of fish-in, did ammonia creep up to below the .25ppm marker on the API test kit.

Excluding that, even with a heavy stocking, ammonia was 0ppm, nitrites 0ppm, nitrates 0-<5ppm.

ph has remained very stable at 7.4 and that’s tap and tank water, so nothing in the tank is altering it.

I was keeping temperature at 74, but have since increased it to 78 over the last two days to maybe help meds work faster.

I feel like I’ve done as much as I can, now it’s just keep up the dosing, stay up on daily water changes and hope for the best.

unless anyone else can help with other suggestions. I’m not sure how comfortable I am with the salt dips Continuing.

If I can, I’ll attach a photo of the smallest fish with the most of his tail missing. The 4 that died had almost no tail left, so I’m hoping that I can save these guys.

to answer another recent panda thread, are they hardy? Not for new people in the hobby or for people who have been out for a long time like me...

Hope @Colin_T can get on quickly, it looks serious...

I’m sorry this is happening to you. This happened to my pandas when I first got them - none of mine made it, hope yours fair better...

PheonixKingZ said:

Hope @Colin_T can get on quickly, it looks serious...

I’m sorry this is happening to you. This happened to my pandas when I first got them - none of mine made it, hope yours fair better...

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Well thank you for the well wishes... I hope so as well.

For the record, I know this was an aggressive stocking, the only reason I did it was I wanted to limit the trips to my local store (Covid and all). I thought if I was careful and diligent enough I could make it work... lesson learned.

Pandas are not hardy cories, no. Even i lose some, I tried some recently, I bought 2. Next day the female died with no apparent symptoms, just dropped dead. And I keep much more delicate fish than this plus many other species of cories.

Many people here cannot keep pandas and its always different causes.

At the size you bought them, buying 9 at once is not aggressive stocking and wouldn't have been the cause.

I would opt to get an antibiotic for the cories, scrap the mela and Pima, they don't work well. Remove any carbon in the tank.
Religiously do water changes and test your water like you are doing.

NCaquatics said:

Pandas are not hardy cories, no. Even i lose some, I tried some recently, I bought 2. Next day the female died with no apparent symptoms, just dropped dead. And I keep much more delicate fish than this plus many other species of cories.

Many people here cannot keep pandas and its always different causes.

At the size you bought them, buying 9 at once is not aggressive stocking and wouldn't have been the cause.

I would opt to get an antibiotic for the cories, scrap the mela and Pima, they don't work well. Remove any carbon in the tank.
Religiously do water changes and test your water like you are doing.

Click to expand...

Do you have any recommendations for antibiotics? I’ve been reading that because of new legislation most of them are not available in Canada anymore, therefor mela and Pima were the only treatments i could really find...

Naterjm said:

Do you have any recommendations for antibiotics? I’ve been reading that because of new legislation most of them are not available in Canada anymore, therefor mela and Pima were the only treatments i could really find...

Click to expand...

Ahhh a fellow Canadian, I feel your pain!

Okay what i would do is any of these that are workable for you off Amazon

Contains Neomycin which is an antibiotic, also meth blue and m green. I have used this with okay results, its one of the few available and is the cheaper option
.
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00ZPM4SOC/?tag=

These ones are much more expensive... but more effective. Not always in stock, at the mercy of whoever decides to sell it.
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00OTH6EFA/?tag=

I need better pictures.

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Don't give fish salt baths because it is incredibly stressful to them. You chase a sick fish around the tank, catch it in a net, lift it out of water and dump it in a salt bath. Ten minutes later you catch the same fish and repeat the procedure except you stick it in fresh water. This stress just makes sick fish worse.

If you want to use salt, then add it to the tank and keep the salt in the main tank for a couple of weeks. Then do small water changes to dilute the salt out.

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Small water changes (10-20%) don't do anything to dilute water quality problems or diseases. If you are going to do a water change, do a big one (75-80%). Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

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Don't mix chemicals in aquariums. Most fish medications are poisonous and stress the fish. If you start mixing medications, you can poison sick and healthy fish.

Don't under-dose medications either because low doses of chemicals don't kill disease organisms and just make them drug resistant and then the medications don't work at all. If you need to use medications, only use one type at a time and use the dose rates specified on the packaging.

Don't add chemicals unless you know what the problem is.

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Don't add anti-biotics unless the fish have a known bacterial infection that has not responded to normal treatments. Improper use and mis-use of anti-biotics has lead to drug resistant bacteria that kill people, animals, birds, fish and reptiles.

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I assume we are talking about Panda Corydoras?

What symptoms do the fish have?

Colin_T said:

I need better pictures.

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Don't give fish salt baths because it is incredibly stressful to them. You chase a sick fish around the tank, catch it in a net, lift it out of water and dump it in a salt bath. Ten minutes later you catch the same fish and repeat the procedure except you stick it in fresh water. This stress just makes sick fish worse.

If you want to use salt, then add it to the tank and keep the salt in the main tank for a couple of weeks. Then do small water changes to dilute the salt out.

------------------
Small water changes (10-20%) don't do anything to dilute water quality problems or diseases. If you are going to do a water change, do a big one (75-80%). Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

------------------
Don't mix chemicals in aquariums. Most fish medications are poisonous and stress the fish. If you start mixing medications, you can poison sick and healthy fish.

Don't under-dose medications either because low doses of chemicals don't kill disease organisms and just make them drug resistant and then the medications don't work at all. If you need to use medications, only use one type at a time and use the dose rates specified on the packaging.

Don't add chemicals unless you know what the problem is.

------------------
Don't add anti-biotics unless the fish have a known bacterial infection that has not responded to normal treatments. Improper use and mis-use of anti-biotics has lead to drug resistant bacteria that kill people, animals, birds, fish and reptiles.

------------------
I assume we are talking about Panda Corydoras?

What symptoms do the fish have?

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Yes we are talking about panda corydoras. Main symptoms were white fuzz/ fluffy and sometimes stringy stuff on body/head and fins. As I mentioned in the OP, that has subsided quite a bit on the remaining fish, on two in particular, it appears* almost gone, and those fish are showing signs of recovery in behaviour.

the other three, the smallest one in particular, are very lethargic, not eating, breathing heavy/quickly, loss of tissue on fins, mainly the tail. sometimes they also have an issue keeping themselves upright.

All the medications I have been dosing to the instructions, except for the API ich med, which I believe says use half for scale less fish, which is what I’ve done so far

Its worth getting hold of indian almond leaves, alder cones or Easy Life make bottles of capatta-x which is a concentrate of indian almond leaves (Terminalia catappa) as it is understood that the tannins have anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties.
If you prefer your water to be crystal clear however, then it probably isn't for you as the tannins do stain the water slightly.

Uploaded the original at higher quality, and the others I could get for now, camera is not that great on my phone.

mbsqw1d said:

Its worth getting hold of indian almond leaves, alder cones or Easy Life make bottles of capatta-x which is a concentrate of indian almond leaves (Terminalia catappa) as it is understood that the tannins have anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties.
If you prefer your water to be crystal clear however, then it probably isn't for you as the tannins do stain the water slightly.

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Thanks, I will look into it, I have driftwood in there, so water is already stained, I quite enjoy the look of it .

NCaquatics said:

Ahhh a fellow Canadian, I feel your pain!

Okay what i would do is any of these that are workable for you off Amazon

Contains Neomycin which is an antibiotic, also meth blue and m green. I have used this with okay results, its one of the few available and is the cheaper option
.
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00ZPM4SOC/?tag=

These ones are much more expensive... but more effective. Not always in stock, at the mercy of whoever decides to sell it.
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00OTH6EFA/?tag=

Click to expand...

Cheers mate, thanks for the info, I’m going to look into it just to have it on hand in case for next time, I’ve already got another 10gal setup for my other boys that’s cycling now. Thanks for the quick responses everyone!

Turned tank lights on to take some more pictures for Colin,

watching the fish right now, appear to have slowed their breathing, I now have 3 of them swimming around and foraging, which was a far cry from this morning where I couldn’t find any of them.

I know I’m not out of it yet, but hopefully these are signs of hope.

NCaquatics said:

Pandas are not hardy cories

Click to expand...

I completely agree on this... sad though, such cute/pretty fish...