guppler
Fish Crazy
I thought I had already learned my lesson with the fry guys, but I must have thought Pepper would be smarter, or maybe I wasn't thinking of how big she was. A couple of times after using my siphon tube to refil my fry tank after a little cleaning i left the flexible clear tube dangling in the tank even though I know I should rinse it imediately. Whats worse, is that I let the end of the tube dip down into the water, and apparently some of the fry couldn't resist exploring the tunnel. I even wondered if they got sucked up the tube somehow, but now I'm pretty sure they swam in and couldn't swim out. The first time the fry were so small i didn't fully realize what was happening. The second time I found dead babies in the tube and I haven't made the same mistake again, well not exactly. I was finnishing gravel vaccing the comunity and a couple of "mystery" yellow apple snails were not too eager to get out of the vacuum attatchment, so I took it off and let it sit in the tank while I refilled, but I kept forgetting to remove the piece because whenever i thought of it my hands smelled like lotion or soap. There were usually guppies in there, and it didn't look like it was doing any harm, but I was planning to take it out and rinse it soon. Then the next day I was getting ready for bed and my mom called to me and asked if Pinki was stuck. I wasn't sure what she meant, but I rinsed my hands well and went to see if I needed to help him out. Pinki was fine, but there was a much bigger fish in the tube. It's a clear cylindar about 1" wide by maybe 9 inches long (2.5-3cm by 20cm?) and one end is open, but the other was mostly blocked by the little blue thing that connects it to the siphon tube and prevents really big stuff from going through. For a second I wondered if it was actually BC in there, but it was too big even for her. My mom had seen Pepper's pale pinkish belly, but by the time I got there she knew it wasn't Pinki. I went ahead and took the thing out like I should have done the day before, but it was too late for my only corydoras paleatus. She was probably only about a year old because she was my smallest (and most expensive) cory when I got them, but she passed them all up on her way to being the biggest tropical fish I've owned yet. (not as long as the male bettas, but much fatter) I felt bad, and I burried her between to pepper plants in the garden.
I guess they can't swim backwards, but I don't know precisely what they die from, or how long they can live stuck in a tube too small to turn around inside of. Pepper looked a little banged up, as if she'd struggled to get free, but I didn't think it had been very long sinse I'd looked and not noticed a problem. (maybe an hour)
I don't plan to get another paleatus until i have more space, but I will be more careful in the future.
I might get another shwartzii or 2 to see if they breed as readily as my cory aenus. Bandit is about the same size as Pinki, so I'm thinking a female shwartzii might be about BC's size.
Sorry to hear about you cory. They do tend to investigate everything. 
