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I have 6 corys in my tank and all are doing well, I think. My C-143 seems a bit shy and I've only ever seen her eat once. I'm hoping that, if I can find a couple, having some conspecific tankmates might be a good thing for her. The first week I had her, she vanished anytime someone approached the tank, but now she seems to be ok with the 5 aeneas and 2 parotocinclus jumbo. It's not uncommon to see her resting on the bottom with a Pitbull on either side.

The other 5 corys are albino aeneas and the largest of this group is a female who is missing most of one of her barbels. How serious is this kind of injury and is the missing barbel likely to grow back? What are the health implications, if any for the fish?

My tank is doing very well (I wish it were "Damn I'm good ," not "Wow, I'm lucky ") with very rare losses, no observable diseases and no aggression issues (other than 2 male sailfin mollies keeping each other in check). I have had 2 recent spawns (Dalmation Sailfin Lyretails, anyone?), so I must be doing something right.

I wouldn't worry about it too much, if she's getting around ok and eating her share, shouldn't be a problem. It's possible that if you keep your water quality up, and she gets plenty of good frozen/live 'feeds', the barbel could grow back. But if its a birth defect or the injury goes deep, like the nerve is gone it probably will never come back. Another factor is the substrate; hopefully you have a nice smooth, round grained, sandy substrate. Cory's generally love to root around in the substrate (as if you haven't noticed already) and 'roll the grains around in thier mouths and pass them out through their gills, sifting for food. Sands like sandblasting sand and coral sands for instance are sharp-edged and can shred barbels and the mouth. That C-143 looks like a 'long snout' as I like to call them. Which means they probably like to root deeper in the sand than the aeneus. Good luck, sounds like your doing alot of things right.