1. Water parameters / ammonia always under .25ppm (I've been fish in cycling for about 3-4 weeks and do a large water change every second day
a) Temperature range / 25oC on average
b) pH / 7.6+, bit hard to read
c) GH / roughly 7.5
d) KH / na
e)Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite, levels.
f) Water change frequency / 30% every second day
2. Tank set up
a) Size / 3ft 38g
b) Substrate / miracle gro potting mix with a cap combo of large pieces of gravel, smaller, and fine where the corys feed
c) Filtration / aqua one clearview 400 HOB
d) Furnishings - heavily planted with a variety of plants, large driftwood piece
e) Other tank mates / 5 other corys (3 adolfoi, 3 peppereds, the one I assume is sick is a peppered); male betta fish
f) How long has it been set-up? / about 3-4 weeks
3. Symptoms / Problem description
So one of my peppered corys has really bizarre behaviour issues. My other corys are constantly active and absolutely love the tank, they ride up and down the airstone bubbles constantly, they have voracious appetites, they're exploring and swimming together all the time.
Except for one peppered cory. He'll sit and hide in amongst the plant stems and just.... not move for hours. He won't join in with them when they swim past him, he doesn't really notice the food. I'll be watching them all play together and he's always missing. Sometimes I see him join in with them, sometimes I see him eating, but it's just.. really weird. He's always hiding somewhere in the same spot for hours, when the others have difficultly sitting still! When I see him occasionally interacting with the others I start to stress less and just assume that he's fine and a weird loner, but idk....
This morning I came out to check on the tank, and he was sitting on one of my amazon sword leaves. Just sitting there. I stared at him for a bit, and he started... swimming in circles. Just swimming around and around on the sword leaf. Not erratically or violently, just swimming leisurely in circles. He wasn't munching on it either.
Sometimes I'll try and very gently nudge him with a chopstick (which I use to poke the substrate to release gas build up bubbles) and he'll barely register it, and when he does, he swims off and then stops again in a close by spot. The other corys are still pretty shy and swim off when I put my arm in the tank.
This morning his belly insides looks a little bit red, and his gills might be a little bit pink. Is it possible it's a bacterial infection? Parasites? Internal parasites? There's a strong possibility my better might have gill flukes ; I medicated the entire tank with a multicure containing malachite green (which none of the corys seemed to mind) but it appears that he's started scratching again. I'm picking up some prazi today to see if that will help.
Okay after writing all that I've actually taken him out of the tank and put him in a temporary hospital
perware container. He ended up coming out of hiding and swimming a bit with the other peppereds, but he seems very very out of it, like he wasn't that there mentally, and was breathing rapidly and had a red belly.I still have a bottle of multicure here, with malachite green. am I okay to dose the
perware container with this, or will it hurt him? I'm going to the aquarium today to pick up anti parasite medication, should I get something else for him specifically?4. Action taken (if any)
Took him out of the tank just down into quarantine.
5. Medications used (if any)
Tank was dosed with malachite green about a week ago; he might have gotten sick after that, I can't really remember his behaviour before then. I got them very recently.