sellers putting stuff in the shipping bags of fish...

[fishorama]

I had forgotten about the cory toxin thing. I've never had that happen since I got mine more locally & not all corys release it or not as much. I remember some people literally "kicking the bucket" before shipping to make them release the toxins before bagging in new water. Nice to see there are actual studies looking into this.

I wonder if Polyfilter works for that, it does take out some proteins plus lots of other stuff too. Carbon is likely much less expensive.

I know my husband got cory "spined" once & it hurt like heck for longer than you might think. I don't recall the species but maybe 1 of the more potent kinds? That was back in 80s, & we did kind of know about cory venom in a vague way. There were many fewer fish species regularly available than now.

Shrimp I've gotten usually have a piece of plant for them to grab onto.

 

[CassCats]

The self poisoning toxin seems to come from the gill area, not the spines, though those have venom as well and it hurts like heck. I've been jabbed once and even if it was a tiny pinprick, it felt like I got stabbed deep. Hurts more than it should.

When I order cories, I like to ask the shipper to ship them separate bags if they don't use carbon.

If you look at photos of some cories, you can sometimes even see the venom glands at the base of the dorsal fins.

Note these two, you may notice a slight pink area behind the head before the dorsal fin

Circled here

 

[fishorama]

Even with your circling, I'm not sure I see the pink gland area. I'll look again tomorrow.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

A number of years ago I ended up with about 50 sterbai breeding corys. I was supposed to be receiving 25 juveniles and the breeder was over stocked, owed me a favor and so there I was stuck with more and bigger fish than I expected. I was getting them to sell from my vendor booth at an NEC event.

I shipped some that I sold, then bagged them to take to the event and sold them there. I do not add anything special to my fish bags aside from the piece of Poly Filter that goes into every bag.

I lost 0 sterbai from that group including the extra fry I got from them. I have known about the kick-the-bucket strategy for years but was never a seller of corys. The technique is perfect if one does it correctly. The way it works is also simple. The point is to make the corys exude their suupply of the toxin before it goes into the bag. It does work. The problem is that it is time consuming. It takes me about and hour from start to finish, Much of this is waiting time.

I kick the bucket three times and change water between each kicking. I wait about 10 minutes after kicking to change the water and rekick.

As for the research by Eric Thomas, I know him and I can assure people his scientific approach is excellent. We met at the 2023 Catfish Convention. Head on over to planet catfish and do a search for his screen name, bekateen. In addition to his being a professor he is also an expert fish keeper. He is the top breeder on Planetcatfish.com with 44 catfish species bred to date.

 

[CassCats]

A number of years ago I ended up with about 50 sterbai breeding corys. I was supposed to be receiving 25 juveniles and the breeder was over stocked, owed me a favor and so there I was stuck with more and bigger fish than I expected. I was getting them to sell from my vendor booth at an NEC event.

I shipped some that I sold, then bagged them to take to the event and sold them there. I do not add anything special to my fish bags aside from the piece of Poly Filter that goes into every bag.

I lost 0 sterbai from that group including the extra fry I got from them. I have known about the kick-the-bucket strategy for years but was never a seller of corys. The technique is perfect if one does it correctly. The way it works is also simple. The point is to make the corys exude their suupply of the toxin before it goes into the bag. It does work. The problem is that it is time consuming. It takes me about and hour from start to finish, Much of this is waiting time.

I kick the bucket three times and change water between each kicking. I wait about 10 minutes after kicking to change the water and rekick.

As for the research by Eric Thomas, I know him and I can assure people his scientific approach is excellent. We met at the 2023 Catfish Convention. Head on over to planet catfish and do a search for his screen name, bekateen. In addition to his being a professor he is also an expert fish keeper. He is the top breeder on Planetcatfish.com with 44 catfish species bred to date.

He's exactly who I was talking about great guy, I've learned a lot from him and Jools, Shane too over that way. They have a lot of knowledge on catfish