# Cory cats not doing well



## kicksilver (Aug 9, 2012)

I introduced a shoal of 6 cory cats into my main community tank yesterday. They had been quarantined for 2 weeks prior, and showed no signs for concern. Now, after being in the tank for 24 hours, two of them are floating sideways at the top of the tank, breathing heavily, and one of those two is also spazing out, darting around the tank uncontrollable like a bat out of hell. The day before I transferred them, I did a 50% water change on their tank, and refilled it with water from the main tank. I also ran tests on the water, and vaccuumed the gravel before transferring them. Everything should have been fine, but it isn't. I also have a couple platys, and a dwarf gourami who are acting healthy and happy, so are the other four cories. Can anyone help me?


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

Need to test the water they are in now to see where it is at.
What size tank,and what filter,how long set up?
List all other fish in tank with them please.
Sounds like poor water quality ,but can't say for sure without test results.


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## kicksilver (Aug 9, 2012)

Well they are beyond help now, may they R.I.P. Now I have a different problem, 2 are dead, and one is missing. I have scoured the tank, looking from every possible angle, and simply cannot find it. What should I do?


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## kicksilver (Aug 9, 2012)

My ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites are all 0, I have been doing thorough tank maintenance for the past two weeks to prepare for my new fish.


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

With zero's across the board there is a problem. You should be showing nitrates in a cycled tank. How long has the tank been up?


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## kicksilver (Aug 9, 2012)

The tank has been running for about a year and a half now. I had another cory doing the same thing this morning, so I returned him to the quarantine tank, and he perked right up. I also lost a platy this morning too, I'm down to just one. 
A couple weeks ago the water was getting really milky, and I was getting ammonia readings of 2 or 3 right after a water change. I had never vacuumed the gravel before, so I bought a vacuum, and I ended up with about 15 gallons of black water to dump down the drain. Since then the water has been clear again, and I thought it would be safe to introduce my new fish, however I've been losing one almost every day since then.


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## kicksilver (Aug 9, 2012)

Also, I just stole the 20 gallon filter from my quarantine tank and put it in the main tank. It looks a little silly having both a hob filter, and an internal filter, but now I have about 50G of filtration, and I'm sick of losing fish.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

I'm going to agree with suan that 0 nitrates mean something has gone wrong.Even with MASSIVE waterchanges(I make them) you should still have some nitrate reading(5?).are you using dechlorinator when you change water?


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## kicksilver (Aug 9, 2012)

Every time I change water I add aqausafe plus, and tetra algae control. I really am starting to think its the gravel, saying as the cories all got sick first, and I vacuumed the substrate again this morning, and it was disgusting how much brown stuff came out.

I'll vacuum again tomorrow before I put my quarantined cory back in.


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

Did you recently clean out your filter? If you did using a sink you could have killed your beneficial bacteria. With zero's like that all around sounds like your cycling again.

Also stop using algae control chemicals as that can be harmful to fish especially cories.


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## kicksilver (Aug 9, 2012)

I didn't clean it out, but I put a new cartridge in. I rarely ever clean the bio-mesh screen, so it's pretty gross looking, but I was trying to avoid killing the bacteria. Also, duly noted on the algae control.


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