Best approach for a corydoras quarantine

[Beastije]

HEre are some photos

 

[GaryE]

Even with photos though...
Corydoras bodies hide a lot, and it is hard to know what is wrong. The sp CW 123 I bought this week are rough looking, but it is fin damage, pet store treatment stuff. There are no signs of anything having become internal. The Corys in the photo show nothing that jumps out at me. Maybe sharper and younger eyes can see something.

In Canada, we have no antibiotics easily available, even if we are trained laboratory techs who can identify fish bacterial diseases (kind of unlikely...).

 

[Alice B]

I am getting really worried now and am considering maybe borrowing an UV lamp, if it were bacterial, to help treat it?

UV lamps work quite well on the free swimming stage of parasites

 

[Beastije]

Lost another over night. I did an ammonia chek before the water change I will do later, 0, 0 nitrites too.
No clue at this point.

This also means not buying the rummynose tetras and not moving the hatchetfish and otocinclus from the quarantine. I will try to get the UV lamp and give it a month and see how the other fish are faring before I decide to do any changes. Ofcourse xmass time is the worst for this, but will see

 

[Beastije]

One of the corydoras that I assume is going to go next, has a hollow place in his underside, between his pectorals. The dead one I took out today also had a hollowed out space there. I fed in the morning, frozen daphnia, this one participated in the feeding, so I guess I can rule out starvation.
TB or internal parasites, I wonder if I should try randomly some anti parasitic medication

 

[Byron]

One thing I would definitely do here...check with the store where you acquired the cories and see if they have had similar losses. If they are honest they should tell you. This would, if they did, at least confirm the probability of something wrong with the fish, and not your water/tank/whatever.

 

[Beastije]

But none of the corydoras I lost are the recent aquires. All are the year old ones

 

[Alice B]

have you medicated with anything?

 

[Beastije]

No, I only have esha2000, which is like 8 years old, and I dont even know with what I would medicate

 

[Alice B]

The pattern of death is parasite, one. then another, spread much slower than bacterial infections. So I would use a quinine based parasite medicine, which I just did to my 29 with corydoras, and they quit dying. Finished meds about a month ago. I can't say what they had, I can say they aren't dying anymore.

Clear Ich was a powder you mixed with water, common 30 years ago, mfgr is gone but it was the best stuff. And it was less troublesome to use than the stuff I just used. (which seemed to drop pH - it was supposed to be used 10 days with daily water changes - I did 5 - it was adequate. Clear Ich was a 3 or 5 day run and it worked back in the 90s.

What I used this time was Quinine Sulfate from National Fish Pharmaceuticals, but they are wholesale only and it comes in a really big jar. I could send you enough to dose with if you want to try it, and remind me how big your tank is. But it's a white powder and you are outside the US. I'm not sure it can go in the mail.

 

[Beastije]

Wow that would be an interesting way to get arrested. There are no freely available antiparazitics in the market at this moment but I will check the physical stores. I know what ingredients are supposed to be in there, if I decide to medicate I will need to move the shrimp and snail.

 

[Alice B]

you will need to move the shrimp and snail. Quinine used to be the go-to for ich medications, back in 1985. It disappeared and formalin and malachite green became more common. If you can find a treatment with quinine that is what I would try. Used to be able to buy over the counter in drug stores in the US for leg cramps, but a new patented medicine came out a bit over 10 years ago and quinine vanished