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We have a 20 gallon freshwater tank (set up since mid-August '11), with the following fish:
1 Powder Blue Dwarf Gourami
1 Mickey Mouse Platy
6 Neon Tetras
1 Rubber Lip Pleco
1 Peppered Cory. Back in December we had three Peppered Corys, but decided to add one more and did not quarantine before introducing it to our tank. Stupid. That one Cory was sick and it wrecked havoc on our tank (something Melafix took care of and then Ich). We lost the new guy and two of the three Corys we already had. The one we have now barely made it, he's actually the reason I finally joined this forum.

The lone Cory we have left, "Pepper" (how original), seemed to be doing fairly well considering he was without any buddies. I absolutely was planning on getting two more after we confirmed the tank was healthy again.

Well, I'm afraid I have not been paying close enough attention and didn't realize that our Cory was losing weight. I think because he wasn't getting enough food. That's my theory because when I fed flakes on Saturday night the Cory seemed to be exerting itself vertically in an attempt to catch the flakes as they sank down; but he had already weakened enough that it was pretty much a lost cause.

I feed flakes every other day. A couple weeks back, I cut back on algae wafers. I was giving the wafers every other day but was afraid it was making too much waste for our meager 20 gallon so I scaled way back to 1 wafer a week. Maybe that's when I doomed the Cory

I began to notice this past week that I was having to look for the Cory in the tank, whereas normally he's out and about doing his scavenger thing. On Saturday night, after noticing his attempt to catch sinking food, I was shocked to discover how emaciated the poor guy has gotten. I purchased some freeze-dried tubifex worms yesterday (Sunday). He is not hunting for food but gobbled up what I offered in front of his face yesterday (maybe too much?). I have continued to "hand" feed the worms (after letting soak up water) but he doesn't take very much at all before turning from the food.
This morning, he/she is extremely listless. He has rolled over and stayed on his side two or three times at the bottom of the tank in the past 24 hours but ends up righting himself.
I feel so bad screwing his little fish life up. Is there any chance to rehabilitate? Could he maybe have not had enough food because he needed his Cory shoal, you know "power in numbers"?

My water was tested yesterday and everything checked out great. I do this at our lfs and did not bring home the details to share. Sorry.

Any suggestions? Please help! This little guy is a fighter and if I can help him I'd like to try. Thanks.

mine go nuts for shrimp pellets.They sink and break up into small bits .
mule

Thanks. I'm heading to the lfs today and will pick some up. I know he likes the flakes with shrimp.

TankGirl wrote:Thanks. I'm heading to the lfs today and will pick some up. I know he likes the flakes with shrimp.

I have a pellet sitting right in front of him and he's not interested. I'm wondering if he needs some cory buddies, but alas I can't get any more because my water levels are way off from the tubifex worms.

Thanks for the suggestion...

Is there any possibility of isolating the catfish in a quarantine tank, with some mature media and a filter? Having no tankmates to compete with to get food could make all the difference, if it is as weak as your post suggests.

TankGirl wrote: my water levels are way off from the tubifex worms.

Could you elabotate on this quote? Feeding some FD tubifex shouldn't effect your water too much at all or did i misunderstand?

In regards to the tubifex worms. I believe my water levels got thrown way off because I was overfeeding the tank in an attempt to get the cory to eat. I put freeze dried tubifex worm cubes in the tank twice a day for two days. I think it murked up the tank. I could absolutely be wrong about that, but prior to doing so my water levels were fine. Anyway, my poor little cory has passed away. I learned a very big lesson, unfortunately too late for the cory.

Hi. My experience is that frozen tubifex contains too much waste that spoils the water a lot. Depends on the brand of course but I simply prefer blood worms. Also it's better to put cubes into some small container, pour some water in, let it melt and then pour "dirty" water out. Only then put it into the tank. Anyway, my corries are fed once a day with frozen blood worms or moina and once a day with flakes and tablets. Bi-weekly I get live tubifex for them and also serve as clean as possible but I always put them all in a tank and they remain live in a tank for at least week so corys can dig them out and eat anytime. Once you get your water params OK, my suggestion would be always to keep corys in a group.

I wonder if he had worms. He would continue to eat but would lose weight until he was too sick. I'm no cory expert though.