What now, complete restart?

[Beastije]

I tend to feed once a day, one day morning, the next day evening, and have two days without food at all. Due to the nature of the fish I need to feed, I do a dry food one day, frozen food the next day, the other day protein wafer in the tank, a day break, algae wafer with a bit of different dry food.
I do add vegetable for the snails twice a week, otherwise they eat my plants, or do one vegetable and just the algae wafer. I crush them into several smaller pieces so the corydoras get some, and the snails dont hog them all.
I guess I put a lot of the food on the surface, because that is the only place the hatchetfish feed from, but it is gone within 5 minutes. It trickles down through the fan shrimp, the swarm of tetras, and lands on the floor where the corydoras clean it out. I never see any food on the floor, though sand is not the best place to look for. The wafers last two hours lets say, the vegetable slices last a day (either 12 or 24 hours, after that I remove).
I was feeding a bit more in the past month, because the fan shrimp was scavenging on the floor, which is a sure sign it is hungry and lacking the feed it needs in the stream.
I fed yesterday morning, didnt feed today but placed a thin slice of zucchini to encourage the snail to stop eating the lotus.
Will do a reading in the afternoon and based on the results a water change

 

[Beastije]

The only overfed fish in my tank are all the tetras, because they will eat it from the surface, from the water stream, and they will also eat the wafers and the algae ones if they are put there. The least fed are the hatchefish, cause they dont eat the frozen food, as it doesnt stay on the surface. Soon the mosquito larvae will start appearing in my rain water jugs and I will be able to feed live ones.

 

[Colin_T]

Considering how skinny some of the tetras are, I would increase feeding to a few times each day until they get dewormed. The extra food should help keep them alive longer so the deworming medication can do its job.

You can feed flake and then frozen or live food at the same feeding. I used to give dry food to all the fish, then go around with frozen food for all of them, and finally add live food after that. The greedy fish got more dry food and the slower feeding fishes got more frozen and live foods.

 

[Beastije]

I am afraid to feed more now. I have possible water quality issue and i barely fees as is, if i start feeding more the quality will be even worse

 

[Beastije]

I fed today a combo of the dried and frozen, did a nitrite reading in the afternoon, is zero. Did a last water change, next one standard on sunday.
I added one piece of Sagittaria subulata from some other fishkeeper in the area, because I basically lost the whole lotus, one part leaves were eaten, second the bulb also has some holes in it. Will see if it survives.
Not sure if this, the bucephalandra, the hornwort and the duckweed will be able to survive in the tank, since I dont add any fertilizers and CO2. Will see what goes and what doesnt, am assuming the duckweed will start wilting again, which worries me because that affects the water quality the most imo.

The cory is behaving oddly, sitting more outside than with the others, chasing itself in the glass, gulping air more often, and the eyes are slightly swollen. Will keep an eye on it, since it has been like this for month and a half, but the behavior was slightly more normal.
One of the skinny ember tetras was moved to a different tank, am feeding more in there, will see how it does or will be easier to euthanize it there if need be.

 

[Beastije]

Will at least upload a picture of my 5 year old Nerite snail, which is bigger than the 6 months old corydoras btw

I did too much cleaning for the tylomelania to like and the zuchinni was not enough, so I found most of the lotus and the new sagitaria eaten today. I dropped an algae wafer and oak leave in, they stopped eating the lotus within 5 minutes and sprinted towards the wafer. Guess my mistake there in not having enough for them to eat so they had to resort in my plants....ah well...

 

[Beastije]

HI guys, I want to open this up again.
The situation is mostly the same.
While I took one of the skinny tetra out to feed it more, I kept it in other, considerably cooler tank for 2 weeks, no difference either way, it is well fed, the stomach is full, but the belly is still sunken. I returned it to the main tank, which could have been a mistake and I am willing to euthanize it, in case it is really parasites, to prevent spread.

I started feeding live mosquito larvae from my own healthy pond, keep up with the 50% a week cleanup.
Exchanged the sagittaria and lotus remains for a bunch of Najas guadalupensis that I was given by another fish keeper. I focus way more on the sand cleanup in each of the water changes.

The corydoras is still the same, very lethargic, sitting outside of the others, blind, not forranging but feeding somehow. I spent hours reading through the internet in regards of possible causes or treatments and didnt find any good news and almost nothing useable.

I have several possible approaches, each one is problematic in its own way:
1. I can take out (and inspect and return) all the wood I have in the tank, in order to determine its health and check what is underneath it, because I cant see there. This will mean taking away the only hiding space for all the corydoras and causing a lot of stress for them, which is a dangerous game to play with them.
2. I can do another round of esha2000 which is for bacteria and parasitical infections, but last time I lost one shrimp and all of my hornwort died and I am really worried, and didnt see much help after last time.
3. I can do a salt treatment, which is controversial with corydoras, and also possibly harmful for all the snails I have (nerite, tylomelania), so I should most likely take them out first.
4. I can check for any bacteria treatment medication that I could purchase and apply, again afraid for the shrimp and snail
5. I can check for the internal parasite treatment that was mentioned here which I didnt do.
6. I can euthanize both the sick tetra and the sick corydoras to remove the source of possible further infection and to not force them to live their lives in any sort of pain

Please someone advise on what to do, because based on the past month, doing nothing and just water changes had made no difference for the corydoras.

 

[Beastije]

Found one more, I can
7. Decrease the temperature to 25°C, I have it at 28°C for the tylomelania, but they will be ok in lower ones for few weeks

 

[Lynnzer]

That might make a difference. The neon tetra would be at or over its temperature range at 28C.
Can't say for the cory though as the species is so diverse. Just check out on the preferred conditions for your own.

 

[Beastije]

That might make a difference. The neon tetra would be at or over its temperature range at 28C.
Can't say for the cory though as the species is so diverse. Just check out on the preferred conditions for your own.

I have ember tetra, they can be kept in up to 28°, that is why I got them to accompany the tylomelania and sterbai, even the marbled hatchetfish are ok in this range, I was careful selecting them in this temperature in mind.
I was thinking lowering it to help the corydoras heal though.

 

[Colin_T]

I would treat the tank for intestinal worms so the tetras can gain some weight and get back to normal.

I would lift each piece of driftwood up and gravel clean under it and then put the wood back in place. It won't stress the fish out if you lift the wood up slowly and clean under it.

I would either treat the entire tank with salt or move the Corydoras into a smaller tank and try salt or some other treatment there. Have a thin layer of sand on the bottom, some floating plants (real or plastic), and a filter and heater.

Nerite snails live in brackish water and aren't affected by salt. Most other snails are fine with low levels of salt. If they close their shells up when you add the salt, they don't like it. You can then scoop the snails out and put them in a bucket of freshwater.

 

[Beastije]

I would treat the tank for intestinal worms so the tetras can gain some weight and get back to normal.

I would lift each piece of driftwood up and gravel clean under it and then put the wood back in place. It won't stress the fish out if you lift the wood up slowly and clean under it.

I would either treat the entire tank with salt or move the Corydoras into a smaller tank and try salt or some other treatment there. Have a thin layer of sand on the bottom, some floating plants (real or plastic), and a filter and heater.

Nerite snails live in brackish water and aren't affected by salt. Most other snails are fine with low levels of salt. If they close their shells up when you add the salt, they don't like it. You can then scoop the snails out and put them in a bucket of freshwater.

Thanks, i did a combination of the easiest options. Temp is 25°C now, i moved the corydoras to a 1l with two teaspoons of salt for 15 minutes, a flash treatment, and I did a deep clean under the wood.

For internal parasites in here we only have a two antibiotic options and neither work well with corydoras,shrimp or snail. Will wait two weeks and see. The tetra also received the flash salt treatment just for the hell of it. It is only skinny one, other females are so far they may burst and all males are looking ok.

 

[Beastije]

An update, in case anyone ever has the same issue in the future. I accidentally killed the tetra, while moving it from the salt bath I hit it with the net too hard, didnt make it, my bad
I did another salt + esha2000 bath on the corydoras. After the last one, no change, not worse, not better
The temp lowering did make a change though, all the corydoras are smidge more active. The most active is this sick one, since it is blind, it is not afraid at all, it goes through my top plants, sits on an anubias, swims through the whole tank, sometimes bumps into stuff or other fish and forages all over. It is not skinnier, no spots, no red gills, no nothing, it feeds regularly and looks about the same, which makes it over two months now that it looks like this.
I am keeping up with the vigorous bottom cleaning regime, though I am letting grow the algae on the glass, since I did decide to get the otocinclus. Maybe they will clean it, if not, will do it in the next few months.
So there is that, I still hope the corydoras turns for the better, it used to be darker, now it is the same color as all the others.

 

[Colin_T]

The temp was probably too much for the fish and it was stressing out. Good to hear it's happier now.

Try to deworm them all if you can. It won't hurt and might help the tetras.

 

[Beastije]

The temp was probably too much for the fish and it was stressing out. Good to hear it's happier now.

Try to deworm them all if you can. It won't hurt and might help the tetras.

Try to deworm with what?
I only found a veterinary pill for deworming called Entizol, which is brutal on sails, corydoras and shrimp
Sera med nematol and Sera med Flagellol, again only available to purchase at a vets office and only at some, nematol is not compatible with shrimp at all, flagellol is "mostly tolerated"
Esha ndx and gdex are sold only at certain vets offices, ndx is not tolerated by snails (this one contains Levamisol), gdex is tolerated by snails and corydoras, but no info on shrimp (and that one contains Praziquantel )
It seems too risky to just randomly try to deworm fish with mostly harmful medication.

If the meds could be specifically delivered only to the tetra in a short bath, I would do that in another tank, but at least the esha are supposed to last 24 hours in the tank, the entizol is taken in a three day course...