Help with one sick corydora

Hi. I have 6 orange Venezuelan corydoras. 5 of them are doing really good. They look healthy, eat amazing, are super active and are always shoaling (and display some breeding behaviour too).

Then I have this one that is smaller and tends to be on her own. She is eating but looks sick. She is less active, smaller, darker in colour and looks like her fins are either rotting or have been nipped. The tail looks awful and her front right fin is nearly gone.

They all live together with one male Betta. The Betta sometimes chases them but I’ve never seen nipping or flaring from him. They chase him back in turn. Looks like innocent play. Also two bamboo shrimps and loads of bladder snails in the tanks. Sandy substrate, natural plants and soft water with 0 ammonia and nitrites and 50% water changes weekly. 27C temp in the water.

They eat frozen foods, repashy and bug bites bottom feeders. Help please!

I gave her a 30 min bath of aquarium water and methylene blue and I have put her in a floating breeder in her tank with clean sand, an Indian almond leaf and some food.

If this was a general sickness I would expect all to be sick but I’m attaching pics of the other cories and as you can see they look well. The Betta is also well. What else can I do? Thanks


These are my healthy specimens

I have no advice for you but the same thing happened to one of my pandas cories this week, he lost part of his fin and then stopped eating and swimming completely. I couldn't find any other obvious signs of illness or injury. I hope she feels better soon. It may be worth popping her back with her friends as she'll be less stressed.

What happened to yours? She is back in the tanks now. I’ve done a good clean and popped her back into clean water with vitamins (esha optima) and Indian almond leaves galore. I hope she makes it

atarah said:

What happened to yours? She is back in the tanks now. I’ve done a good clean and popped her back into clean water with vitamins (esha optima) and Indian almond leaves galore. I hope she makes it

Click to expand...

Mine unfortunately had to be euthanised but was more poorly than yours from the sound of things. If she's still eating hopefully she'll get better.

How long have you had them all? You describe the interaction as playful (between the cories and the betta) but from all I've read here if he's chasing them he's not playing, even if that looks that way from a human perspective. He might have nipped at this one and that's why it's in that shape and segregating itself from the rest of his own species. I don't have shrimp, but I'd guess that like most or all aquatic life, they'll take a shot at a sickly or weak animal, and shrimp are scavengers after all.

The methylene blue is, if I'm right; good for fungal infections, abd this doesn't look like it.

If this was my fish I'd keep it segregated in another tank and use salt to help speed up the healing, or at least keep it in the breeder box so it doesn't get nipped more while it's trying to heal.

It is definitely a good sign that it's eating.

Good luck.

Has the fish always been smaller than the others?
If yes it's either a runt or has intestinal worms and or gill flukes.

I would deworm the fish with Flubendazole or Praziquantel and Levamisole. See section 3 of the following link for deworming fish.

They have been together for months. The bamboo shrimps are filter feeders they can’t attack anything.

She is doing much better, her colour is back and is eating very well and interacting with the rest. The fins are still hurt of course but they look the same. I used a full course of myxazin, lowered the temp to 26 and boiled a bunch of Indian almond leaves and made the water dark.

This is her today with one of her friends eating repashy. I think whatever was going on is solved. I hope the fins will regenerate