Why Can't I Keep Cory Cats?

[snowflake311]

Everyone I have ever had has died. I give up. I have 2 schwartz left. Could the other fish be stressing them out?

I have a crazy breeding pair of blue acaras that bring lots of drama to the tank. I also have a medusa pleco who only comes out at night. She might be adding to the stress at night maybe. One of my Corys is out right now sifting around in the sand. They look fine no sign of illness. Then they die.

I mean really what gives.


Stocked with
2 blue acara
8 red eye tetras
1 Medusa pleco ( looking for a new home)
1 BN pleco
2 schwartz cory cats left.
All are healthy and happy. My acaras are abusive to each other after they spawn so there is drama in the tank that makes it not so peacful. I am wondering if that might be stressing the cory cats out. BUT THEY HAVE LOTS OF HIDE OUTS. GRRRRRR I am so fed up with this. WHY DO THEY ALL DIE !!!!! I'm really upset about this. 12 years ago in my first tank i kept 2 peppered corys in a 5 Gal tank and they were fine so hardy. But now 12 years later I can't seem to keep them alive in a 55 Gal planted tank. AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Water is all good
Ph 6.5
0 ammonia
0 nitrites
5 nitrates
I do 40% water changes every week sometimes every 5 days. I suck up all the poop off the sand. I was using Some liquid plant frets. I am cutting back on that. I'm going to use the in substrate plant tabs only with a little bit of Excel. See how that goes. I was using Flourish iron and just the basic flourish stuff and excel. I think that is a bit over kill for the type of plants I have.


I have sinking food for them Shrimp pellets and algae wafers. I feed them those at night when lights are out and in morning I feed flakes and sinking pellets for the acaras.

temp 78 F
Filter is the Eheim classic 2215 rated for a 93 Gal tank. I have air stones in the tank too.

Please help me figuar out what it could be.

Anything ealse you need to know?

The tank has been up and cycled for 3 months now.

 

[lalo99]

Everyone I have ever had has died. I give up. I have 2 schwartz left. Could the other fish be stressing them out?

I have a crazy breeding pair of blue acaras that bring lots of drama to the tank. I also have a medusa pleco who only comes out at night. She might be adding to the stress at night maybe. One of my Corys is out right now sifting around in the sand. They look fine no sign of illness. Then they die.

I mean really what gives.


Stocked with
2 blue acara
8 red eye tetras
1 Medusa pleco ( looking for a new home)
1 BN pleco
2 schwartz cory cats left.
All are healthy and happy. My acaras are abusive to each other after they spawn so there is drama in the tank that makes it not so peacful. I am wondering if that might be stressing the cory cats out. BUT THEY HAVE LOTS OF HIDE OUTS. GRRRRRR I am so fed up with this. WHY DO THEY ALL DIE !!!!! I'm really upset about this. 12 years ago in my first tank i kept 2 peppered corys in a 5 Gal tank and they were fine so hardy. But now 12 years later I can't seem to keep them alive in a 55 Gal planted tank. AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Water is all good
Ph 6.5
0 ammonia
0 nitrites
5 nitrates
I do 40% water changes every week sometimes every 5 days. I suck up all the poop off the sand. I was using Some liquid plant frets. I am cutting back on that. I'm going to use the in substrate plant tabs only with a little bit of Excel. See how that goes. I was using Flourish iron and just the basic flourish stuff and excel. I think that is a bit over kill for the type of plants I have.


I have sinking food for them Shrimp pellets and algae wafers. I feed them those at night when lights are out and in morning I feed flakes and sinking pellets for the acaras.

temp 78 F
Filter is the Eheim classic 2215 rated for a 93 Gal tank. I have air stones in the tank too.

Please help me figuar out what it could be.

Anything ealse you need to know?

The tank has been up and cycled for 3 months now.

If those acaras are full grown or close to it, Iwould guess its them. They can easily stress corys out. Another problem is the acaras will eventually try to eat the corys. The cory can get stuck in the acaras mouth, killing both. Cories are not the best catfish when dealing with larger cichlids. If you raelly want to have a catfish, then try a raphael catfish. They are armored and will get large enough, that they wont be bothered. They are however nocturnal. So dont expect to see them often.

 

[snowflake311]

The acaras are only 3 inches. Could there be something in my water that I don't know about that is killing them? I use dechlorantor but I just don't know. Maybe elevation is kililng them I live at 6,000 Feet above sea level. I just don't get it. Why do they all die in my tanks. It is driving me crazy.

 

[minxfishy]

I would doubt the Acaras would try to eat them, Ive kept corys as small as Pandas with large cichlids, including severums, with no problems at all, ok if they are breeding they would chase the corys away, as my Aureus pair did, but corys being corys would generally ignore this and carry on about their business.

What temp is the water at? Alot of species of cory do prefer the temp to be lower, 24c (ish) and higher temps seem to stress them out abit, which is why sometimes they dont do well in a cichlid tank that often needs to be a little higher, again saying that mine are kept around 26c when in cichlid tanks.

Are they getting enough food? Often cichlids will get to it, particularly pellets, long before the corys can, I found feeding mine flakes and smaller food easier for them and the cichlids ignore it more than pellets.

 

[snowflake311]

well I lost another. WHAT THE F !!!!! I hate this. I give up I will never buy another cory again.

I would see them eat they never looked skinny. Maybe my Medusa pleco is killing them at night I just don't know. The temp is 78 F = 25 C . It will not stay lower then that since it is summer time the tank warms up during the day.

AHHHHHH What could be in the water killing them? No other fish are dieing My BN pleco my Medusa and all 8 redeye tetras are fine never lost any of them. My Freaking Crazy Acaras just spawned again eggs just hatched today.

I just want to scream it is not fair.


I just checked the water now that I found another floating cory.
ph 6.5
Ammonia 0
Nitrates 10
nitrites 0
Temp 78
Copper 0
Test strips say
GH 75
KH 40

 

[mikev]

Sorry for your loss, but interesting. It may indeed be something in the water.

You may want to research other metals, Zinc for example may also be toxic, even Iron.

Zero Copper on API test incidentally means nothing; some fish cannot tolerate levels of Cu that register as zero on the test. Cu is considerably more dangerous in low pH like you have, so I'd not exclude it.

If water is the problem, the solution is to make your own. I do this, with about 50 tanks here, and because of low-level Cu presence in the water here (below the detection level of the kit but still fatal to some fish).

hth

 

[snowflake311]

Sorry for your loss, but interesting. It may indeed be something in the water.

You may want to research other metals, Zinc for example may also be toxic, even Iron.

Zero Copper on API test incidentally means nothing; some fish cannot tolerate levels of Cu that register as zero on the test. Cu is considerably more dangerous in low pH like you have, so I'd not exclude it.

If water is the problem, the solution is to make your own. I do this, with about 50 tanks here, and because of low-level Cu presence in the water here (below the detection level of the kit but still fatal to some fish).

hth

Yeah there must be something in the water that is killing them. Something that I can not detect. Do you have an RO filter ? How do you make your own water.

I might call the water company and ask they what's in it. Then I will report back.

 

[mikev]

I might call the water company and ask they what's in it. Then I will report back.

Ask for a water report. This may help. Don't ask them to figure out the problem, unless you find a fishkeeper in your water company, this is a waste of time. The report may be available on time, and in many places is mailed to everyone once a year. If you want, PM me and let me take a look at it.

For metal contaminants, one should use either a DI or an RO/DI filtration; I use the latter (DI is very expensive with large volume).
Going to cost you some money and time but will reduce losses and problems.