Cory Hasn't Moved In Days

[Katty]

So over the past couple of days I noticed one of my corydoras has done nothing but sit. I've had these guys for over a couple of years now so I recognize this isn't their normal "sitting around". First day, he was sort of "crashed" on my anubias plant, kinda just laying in the center of the leaves doing nothing. I've never seen any of my corydoras just sit in the leaves before, but I just thought at the time, oh cute, he must be taking a nap.

Then the second day, yesterday, I noticed (I'm guessing it's the same corydora) it sitting in the back corner of the tank not moving. His gills were moving but he was not. His other 3 companions were cavorting around the tank while he just sat there. When I put in food for dinner, usually all the cories go absolutely nuts and rush around the tank vacuuming everything, but this guy just sat in the corner and refused to move, even when the other cories barreled over him. Eventually he sort of curled sideways after getting ran into so many times and just sat there for the rest of the night.

I came home today, the third day, hoping he'd be better but he still is sitting in the same corner, but faced a different direction and against the back glass. His tail fin looks clamped, and I don't know if it's just the lighting back there but he is really pale white, while his other albinos are pink-white. The only way I can tell he's even alive is his gills are moving.

Do you think he's sick? Old? Dying? Is there anything I can do or should I just let nature take its course?

None of the other fish in the tank are ill so I don't think it's a water quality issue.

 

[Caprichoso]

You can definitely rule out age as a factor. Cories can live for many years (my green cories are almost 12). Normally, I would say not to worry about the inactivity because my female cory does that when she's full of eggs and ready to lay them. She disappears behind my bogwood for a few days and I always think she's going to die!
Is this fish a female?
I've sen my cories sit in all types of odd places(balancing on top of plants, bogwood and even nestled in moss).
The clamped tail fin doesn't mean much either(I've had the same behaviour with mine). What does worry me though is the lack of color. That is a sure sign something is wrong.
Are his gills moving at the same rate as the other cories?
Anytime any of my fish start acting strange I always, always do a water test. Then you can for certain rule that out. There is nothing you can do other than test the water and do a very careful water change(as not to stress out the poor little guy or girl). Let nature take it's course but hopefully all will be well.
Good luck

 

[Katty]

I've no clue what is going on. I have no idea of it's gender, I just refer to it as a he. Anyways it is doing horrible today. When I found him early this morning he was upside down on the substrate, with little/no gill movement. I thought he was dead so I went to net him out and he started twitching and flipped over right-side up. I netted him out anyways and stuck him in a little floating breeder box thing in the tank. When I came home today he was sitting still in the box but wiggled a little when I nudged him to see if he was still alive. He looks really heavy when he does swim, but only moves maybe an inch at a time and scoots his body as he does it. I haven't seen him eat since this started.

What is very scary is I can see through his tail, the flesh is very pale and translucent and I can see the tail bone and some of the spine through it! I'll test the water in a bit. His eyes aren't red like usual either, they are a very very pale pink.

A few months ago I introduced a pair of bronze corydoras. One of them was fine and is still doing great now but the other one was very slow and acted strangely and died after a couple weeks for no apparent reason. Could it be a disease? I've never heard of anything like this.

 

[Katty]

I tested the water and there is 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite

 

[Caprichoso]

I tested the water and there is 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite

Ok, the next thing that has to be looked at is your entire tank set up. What your cleaning routine is, how much food do you feed, have you ever had ammonia present with these fish in the past, water temp...

 

[Katty]

I try to change 20% of the water once every week, sometimes it turns out once every week and a half. The water is about 77-79 degrees fahrenheit, I feed a couple pinches of a good pellet food once a night and it's all gone within 5 minutes. Once a week I feed frozen bloodworms or daphnia. I've never had any ammonia in this tank with fish, it was fishless cycled. All of the albino cories have had their side fins chomped by a betta who used to live in there, but the betta is gone now and the fins are growing back. The tank is planted so I dose 2mL flourish excel a day and 1mL of a mostly iron plant food. The fertilizers are nothing new I've been doing them for quite a while now. I also recently (1 month+) added two otocinclus who are healthy.

 

[Caprichoso]

I'm sorry, I'm at a loss as to what could be wrong. It seems that your doing all the right things. Maybe he was injured internally already and the stress of the betta attack put him over the edge...it's so hard to say. If the others remain healthy it may just be an isolated incident. Unfortunately, I'm not very knowledgeable with internal diseases and parasites so I couldn't even offer any advice there.
Hopefully the rest of your cories do well. Best of luck!

 

[Rynofasho]

What are your nitrAtes? My Corys didn't seem to take kindly to nitrates over 40ppm

 

[Katty]

I have a nitrate test and either my tank has no nitrates or the test doesn't work because it says there is 0 nitrate. All of the other cories are healthy but this one looks like its right at death's door, so I'd figure they'd all be sick if it was the water quality.