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I can't figure out why my Corydoras always lose their whiskers.

20 years ago I kept Corydoras no problem. I kept Cory Robineae with a fine gravel substrate. During that time also kept other cory's.

I'm using sand in my current set up and my group of six cory similis have lost their whiskers. This has been going on for 2 years. Every time I buy cory's they lose their whiskers.

My water parameters are stable. I don't have any aggressive tank mates. I have a leopard frog pleco snowball pleco rams and tetras. I do a 50% water change once a week. The tank has lots of flow and good filtration. Temp is 80F.

The only thing I can think of that might be the problem is food. I'm feeding shrimp pellets and brine shrimp flakes. The tetras gobble the flakes up before any other fish get them. The pleco's eat the shrimp pellets. There should be enough shrimp pellets for the corys.

Will their whiskers grow back? Any suggestions for diet? I have frozen blood worms but I hate feeding them. I'm extremely allergic to the bloodworms and don't like handling them.

Replace the bloodworms with brine shrimp gut loaded with spirulina to avoid the allergic reaction. This won't help with the lost whiskers. I wonder if the sand you are using is to coarse.

Hi all,

jd_7655 wrote: ↑17 Nov 2021, 15:12 I can't figure out why my Corydoras always lose their whiskers.

My water parameters are stable. ........ I do a 50% water change once a week. The tank has lots of flow and good filtration. Temp is 80F.

Is it a planted tank?

cheers Darrel

Scrap the bloodworms.

Use mysis shrimp, brine shrimp, daphnia, or cyclops. Of those, daphnia is actually fantastic.


Do you have photos of their barbels and of the substrate? How often is the substrate vacuumed? What's the flow rate of the tank? Wondering maybe if there's any dead zones in the tank that are growing bacteria that's not so good for barbels.

Also add some Indian almond leaves for leaf litter... the tannins are very helpful. Barbels may not come back depending on the extent damaged, but there's always a chance. Tannins can at least help heal any wounds still there.

Agree with the above. Pictures will definitely help.

Good luck,
Eric