Is This Normal

[lmbridgen]

Hi Ive got 3 albino corys and one of them is behaving strangly, its keeps burying itself head first into the gravel and just sits there. its right up to the gills and the other corys go up to it and nudge it, I thought is was dead it was so still for so long but when I openened the lid to scoop it out it shot out and swam around with the others quite normally for a while. Its now buried again and honestly looks dead.
Why is it doing this.
Do I need to worry about it or just ignore its strange new behaviour.

 

[Amunet]

Hmmm... I'm not sure but are you sure it's just not looking for food?
My cory likes trying to dig through our gravel searching for scraps and when it finds some, it stays still for a little bit b/c it's eating... just a thought.
I'm not expert on corys though! heh

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

When it does this behavior, does it stay with its head under the gravel for a long time or just a couple of moments?
Corys feed by filtering through the substrate with their barbels/whiskers looking for food, in a gravel substrate they can't really do this natural behavior very easily, but in a fine sand substrate they can (you can actually see them passing the sand in mouth and out of their gill area).

 

[lmbridgen]

Hi and thanks for fast replies,
In answer, It will keep perfectly still for a long time, deff minutes not seconds and when It is buried it looks like its head has been eaten, thats the only way to describe it, it looks headless and conpletely motionless.
its obviously gone a bit mad, but so long as its not suffering in some way I wont worry.

 

[NEONCORY]

What are you feeding? They go after pretty persistant when you feed some kind of worms. They would easily bury half of face digging try to catch those tasty meal. Luckily I have all fine sands in the tank with Corys and they have easier time to dig. But sometime they try so hard that they stand on their head/snout on the sand, try to dig deeper.
And yes, they would chow or filter their catch in their mouth while stay still except their cheek part moving. And I too see the sand sifted out of their scoute(I think this is the word for it)/gill plate/cheek whatever you call. You know what I mean. So I say they are just after the food.

 

[lmbridgen]

Never quite sure why he was doing it but he has died today perhaps he was looking for somewhere to die ( not sure if fish do that actually )

 

[Bozza]

Thats sad to hear he died. I wonder why he did that, we will never know