I am new and need help with my Cory's

[silver]

At the turn of the new year this year I bought a used 55 gallon tank from a friend of mine. I set it up and let is cycle with some mollies and added fish. I have 2 silver dollars, 3 angel fish, 1 bloody parrot 3 gouramis and 6 Cory cats (3 of a greyish kind and 3 of a salmon and black kind).

Well, about 3 weeks ago one of my skiddish silvers darted right into the thermometer and broke it. The bottom half of it was lying on the gravel. I picked it out and threw it away and thought nothing of it. Well, about 2 weeks ago one of my grey Cory cats started swimmimg in the middle strata which is WAY wrong for a bottom feeder so I knew something was wrong and it turned up dead the next day (never had any problems before) and then 2 days later another grey one dead. Tonight, about 1 week after the second dead grey Cory, one of my cute salmon and black ones was dead on the floor of the tank. I am scared that the rest of my fish whom I ADORE are going to die too. My Ph is fine and my amonia is fine and we did a 30% water change last week after the second Grey dead Cory and the we change the filter media too!! Oh, I forgot to mention that we have snails too!!

The only thing I can think of is that maybe some of the little mercury beads came out of the thermometer, so I scooped up all of the gravel where the broken thermometer lay and I changed the water again and cleaned the gravel in that area. I add Clorine Out stuff to my water.

Or maybe they are eating snail eggs and aren't suppose too!!??? Or maybe they aren't getting enough food because the others eat it all, but I always see some of the food settling on the bottom for them to eat too when I feed the fish!!?? Or maybe they are laying babies and Cory's die after laying eggs!!?? Or maybe...............AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!

Please help me!??

Silver

 

[cichlidmaster]

Don't think your problem is the broken thermometer!!

Not an expert on cories, but it may be a tankmate that is causing the problem. The blood parrot ( you called it right tho...bloody) being a hybrid cross of two beautiful cichlids, the red devil and severum could be the culprit.

Red devils and severum are aggressive fish in their own right and the blood parrot having both their genes can be as well!!

Then again when you say the ph and ammonia are fine....what do you mean by fine?? What are the readings???

CM

 

[wetwetwet]

If your testing also test for nitrIte

Ammonia and nitrite are higly toxic to your fish....if you missed any dead bodies for a while these can quickly pollute your water...

Also the majority of the benificial bacteria live in your filter media so if you've changed all this then there wont be enough to process these products from fish waste/decay .... - you really need to monitor your water closely .

If there was beads in the thermometer then it probably wasn't mercury - though there may have been something toxic in the thermometer.... the lcd ones that stick on the outside of the glass imho are best..

Test the water, cut back on feeding and possably be prepared to do some large water changes...

And as cm says the parrots can be right little terrorists