Peppered Corys Suddenly Gone Shy..

[VaegaVic]

So I had in my collection, 7 peppered corys, all of which were out and about during the day quite happily feeding.
I had to go away for a few days around Valentines day (and get engaged woop woop!) obviously leaving the lights off.

When I had returned, sadly one had died and the rest were no where to be found.
After a nice clean (to reduce ammonia of course) and what not, the other 6 popped out

The next problem I had is that they have now all gone completely shy, any footsteps in the room sends them absolutely flying around the tank, where as before they wouldn't have even noticed.

I added another 3, bringing it up to 9, and this has hardly made any difference, they are a bit more active, but the tank can't hold any more corys and my bank balance cant take another tank.

I've started a lighting regime again, in hopes it will coax them out, but I'm doing odd shifts lately at work, and the plug-in timer doesn't seem to want to work unless I turn it on manually, thus defeating the point of having it.

Any ideas on how to encourage my corys to come out and about again?

 

[Loops]

Ours are like this, if one of them darts to the back of the tank when we walk in they all follow! Yet the Sterbai are fine and stay at the front

 

[plecostomus-mad]

i have 3 peppered corys, i forgot to turn my lights on one morning and the tank was lighted by the daylight only through the window.( my plecos loved it.lol) the next day i turned them on and they all 3 where hiding in a cave, took 2 days for them to be active again.....they were more wary of me too. it took a week for them to get back to normal so i wouldn't worry too much, just corys being corys.lol

EDIT: i would get a mechanical timer, digital ones are crap in my experience.

 

[lilacamy931]

Hey hon, first of all congratualtions! Absolutely fab x As to your cories perhaps the light being out has just made them nervous as it wasnt their usual routine (they can just be like cats and dogs sometimes ) Try to get a proper timer for them and really try to get them into some sort of routine again. Have you been testing the water stats since the dead cory just in case? Best of luck withthem and let us know how you get on with a daily light regime xxx