# Anybody keep Corydoras Hastatus?



## Something Fishy (8 Oct 2018)

Hi guys

Had a few of these for past few weeks and love them, only in a heavy planted 22l with large filter on. Lost 2 quite recently and trying to understand why.

Found this: 

“The Corydoras are quite sensitive to water parameters and quality, and highly intolerant of salt, chemicals and medications. Signs of stress usually begin with rapid respiration, then lethargy (often just "sitting" on plant leaves, wood or the substrate respirating heavily, sometimes near the surface) and sometimes rolling onto one side.”

I used small amounts of ferts and glut - do they find this hard to tolerate at all. Other than that I temp match and add prime to water, even using filtered water when I can.

The only other thing is that I have a MC carpet and feed with small grain food - could they not be eating enough that falls down do you think?

First was was doing as above as rolling on their side, second one was just in my filter intake when I came home 


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## zozo (8 Oct 2018)

Hi,

No i did not kept the hastatus, but the pygmaeus very simular and equaly small.. And experienced simular behaivor.. In my case it was a parasite infection, Trichodina.. Because they are so small it is very hard to spot they have.. Not so long a go a fellow aqaurist had again simular issues and it was again a parasite infection and this time Chilodonella. Both are external skin parasites.

To find out if and what they have you realy need a skin sample put under a microscope.. Try to find a LFS that assists customers with this service or find a vet willing to look. Else it will be difficult to determine, look at skin condition, excessive slime build up (mucus) is one of the skin parasite symptoms. To get a skin sample it is best to take a life fish or be very fast after it died. Because the parasite will leave a dead host, a fish dead for a day is not ideal.

The chances it is a parasite infection is high with wild caught specimen.. Hastatus and Pygmaeus most likely are because of the lower demand they are not realy captive bred. Wild caught fish almost all cary more or less a skin parasite wiyhout any isues, that's pretty common, if they are strong enough and stay healthy. But all they have to go through as wild caught fish before ending up in your tank can give them a fatal draw back in health and get stressed and finaly sick and infected. Additional infection 2nd stage infection you can watch out for is Fin Rot.. Once this is started it realy is rather late.

Most skin parasites can be treated very safely with Fluk Solve.
https://www.fish-treatment.co.uk/fluke-solve-aquarium/

You could aslo contact the fish doctors at above site via e-mail if you have questions.  In my case they relied very swiftly with proper advice.

Best is to find out what you are treating for.


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## Something Fishy (8 Oct 2018)

Thanks zozo I think you’re right. 

I’ll ask my supplier as well and see. Getting that skin sample I can imagine is not going to be an easy task!

I have a Chihiros Doctor running too but not sure if that will help with anything. They seem more lively with it and eating.


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## zozo (8 Oct 2018)

No with such small fish taking a skin sample is tricky and also not very good for the fish. But there aint much choice if yu like to safe a few. Catch the one in worst condition. Then strike it with the microscope glas slide to get skin slime on the glass and watch it under a microscope. If there are skin parasites you'll likely find them if you know what to look for..

Trichodina looks like this. Hovering around like a little UFO.




Chilodonella




But it could be anything else less common as well..

Succes..

btw, my ordeal was a few years ago maybe 4 dunno excactly.... All were very sick.. But still have one today that survived it..


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## Something Fishy (8 Oct 2018)

Thanks man appreciate that. Can I touch the fish on the glass then return it to the tank after?

Did you treat the one that survived or did it just pull through? Shame as they are shoal fish 


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## zozo (8 Oct 2018)

Something Fishy said:


> Thanks man appreciate that. Can I touch the fish on the glass then return it to the tank after?
> 
> Did you treat the one that survived or did it just pull through? Shame as they are shoal fish
> 
> ...



I got adviced to treat it for 14 days with Fluke Solve and it worked a charme.. I had 2 or 3 dead and 5 survivers.. And taking a skin sample of such a small fish that already is in stress most likely will not survive. Mine didn't, it died shortly after taking the sample. But it saved the rest because it showed me Trichodina infection.  

In my case they were in very bad shape, a few went blind from the infection and all tho survivers some never realy recovered completely but still lived quite some time. I thought i lost them all over the last 3 years.. But actualy not so long ago i saw one still alive. As said they are so small, they can hide for months in a well planted setup. Than i think it is 1, it could also be 2 and i yet didn't spot both at the same time. But a healthy Cory  can get extremely old.


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## MirandaB (8 Oct 2018)

22lts is too small for them,I'd say its more down to stress


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## Aqua360 (9 Oct 2018)

zozo said:


> I got adviced to treat it for 14 days with Fluke Solve and it worked a charme.. I had 2 or 3 dead and 5 survivers.. And taking a skin sample of such a small fish that already is in stress most likely will not survive. Mine didn't, it died shortly after taking the sample. But it saved the rest because it showed me Trichodina infection.
> 
> In my case they were in very bad shape, a few went blind from the infection and all tho survivers some never realy recovered completely but still lived quite some time. I thought i lost them all over the last 3 years.. But actualy not so long ago i saw one still alive. As said they are so small, they can hide for months in a well planted setup. Than i think it is 1, it could also be 2 and i yet didn't spot both at the same time. But a healthy Cory  can get extremely old.



This.

I always treat new fish with praziquantel, in the form of fluke solve, as a precautionary


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## Something Fishy (9 Oct 2018)

MirandaB said:


> 22lts is too small for them,I'd say its more down to stress



It was a slight gamble but online said 5 should be fine as did the lfs as my tank’s very planted up. They don’t look stressed to be honest just the odd ones go off the rails.

I did notice the eye of the last one looked off. Even in the lfs they were not schooling and were quite mopey on the floor level :/


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## MirandaB (9 Oct 2018)

When you say the eye looked "off" do you mean it looked like popeye?


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## Something Fishy (9 Oct 2018)

MirandaB said:


> When you say the eye looked "off" do you mean it looked like popeye?



 haha not quite.

It was quite dark and smaller is all.


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## MirandaB (9 Oct 2018)

Probably nothing to worry about with the eye.
They may well have an underlying issue going on as others have mentioned but my personal opinion is it's more stress related and you'd do better to rehome them to a bigger tank.


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## Conort2 (9 Oct 2018)

What dimensions is the 22l you currently have them in?


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## Something Fishy (9 Oct 2018)

30cm cube pal. Got strong current and 10l filter on it, heavily planted they seem fine and are roaming loads, sometimes swimming into the current for ages. 

They are active and eating well, but the ones I’ve lost have all of a sudden changed almost overnight.

The descriptions of how they are when I’ll and from what zozo said it sounds very similar to what I have experienced. 

I have three other tanks but a shoal of 5 I would hardly notice in them really, these are tiny guys are about my finger width, my cherry shrimps are bigger than they are haha.


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## Conort2 (9 Oct 2018)

Something Fishy said:


> 30cm cube pal. Got strong current and 10l filter on it, heavily planted they seem fine and are roaming loads, sometimes swimming into the current for ages.
> 
> They are active and eating well, but the ones I’ve lost have all of a sudden changed almost overnight.
> 
> ...



May just not be great stock then, especially when they're that small. They will definitely be wild caught. One thing I'd recommend with all wild caugh fish is to worm them. You'll be surprised how much grief they can cause. Before I wormed I used to lose small fish gradually once every few months with no visible symptoms or they would end up going to stuff like dropsy. Once I wormed I have had no deaths at all since.

Cheers

Conor


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## alto (9 Oct 2018)

From Seriously Fish



> *Aquarium Size*
> Minimum base dimensi0ns of 60 ∗ 30 cm are recommended. This species is unsuitable for modern ‘nano’ aquaria.



Also note the lower temperature 20-26C

I finally obtained a group of 13 a couple years ago
They arrived in a shipment from Columbia or Peru (sorry can’t recall which) & were wild caught
Like you I placed them in a well planted 30cm cube, intending to move them to a 60cm x45cm once established
Tank was non-CO2, window light, occasional Tropica fertilizers, internal filter etc - note the absence of any fine sand (which in my previous corydoras experience seems unregarded)
They seemed active, eating well (frozen bloodworm, daphnia, brine shrimp) but I lost a couple the first week - shop replaced them, lfs had placed them in a species tank & remaining stock seemed active etc - definitely no “moping”
Although fish ranged in size from quite small to mature size, none appeared “too thin”

I never ended up moving these fish to their intended tank as I would find an ailing or dead fish every few weeks
After 6 months it was obvious all of the C hastatus were affected by the same “ailment”, by then the remaining 3 had that too slender look you see in cories that seems always terminal
- last fish made it to just past 8 months, note fish had grown during this time (I’d selected some of the smaller individuals)
- going back to the SF profile, some of the pictured C hastatus are too thin ... including that first photo

I never ended up treating these fish as I couldn’t find any definite symptoms, the fish were active & eating ... until they weren’t ... I suspect _something_ internal
In hindsight it seems obvious that I should’ve tried medicated foods or metronidazole or praziquantel baths etc but these are usually somewhat (or significantly) stressful to fish and I’m always reluctant to treat without some direction
AND it’s possible this is viral in origin

I still wasn’t convinced there wasn’t something amiss in my fishkeeping skills ... until I spoke with another person that had also begun with a group of 12 fish, losing all over a similar time period
Like mine, these fish were placed in a smaller tank (less than  the 60cm guideline SF reports)

Is this just environmental stress - which in fish certainly depresses the immune system to the point where the normal complement of low level pathogens (slowly) become overwhelming resulting in fish death ...
(unfortunately there is nothing remotely local for fish disease analysis)

I’ve not seen C hastatus available since, though C pygmaeus is quite common, they seem to be fairly easy keepers and acc SF



> You could keep quite a large group of these in a tank measuring only 18″ x 12″ x 12″ (45cm x 30cm x 30cm) – 42.5 litres.


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## alto (9 Oct 2018)

But is this related to Environmental Stress from a too small tank ....

It’s common to see fish displayed in tanks that are too small, too crowded ... also some fish such as juvenile discus seem more comfortable in a 60cm x45cm tank rather than the 120cm x 45cm tank UNLESS there are sufficient numbers 

I managed to track down a group of juvenile S selatanensis earlier this year, I purchased 2 groups of 10 fish which I placed in separate quarantine tanks as they were from different shops - one group I’d received directly in the shipping bag, the other from a shop tank (mixed with other species, including some obviously unwell _S_ _osphromenoides)
_
The first group were active & eating, I did lose one fish in the first few days but there had been an “extra” in the bag 

The second group seemed OK the first day or so, but then obviously deteriorating - I treated with formalin (_Sphaerichthys_ seem to respond well to this medication) which seemed to improve their activity but they were still less active, eating less etc ... as expected I slowly lost the entire group to what I think of as “chocolate gourami disease” 
- re previous _Sphaerichthys osphromenoides _experience they seem susceptible to internal bacterial infection which seems refractive to any medications I have available

The first group moved from the relatively bare (with few potted plants & floating plants) first tank to a transitional planted 45P as they were still very small. They settled in & seemed to be doing OK but as with the C hastatus I seemed to lose a fish every few weeks - I was hesitant to move them to the heavily planted 60 x 45 x 55 as it’s nearly impossible to remove these fish without tearing apart the tank, they are one species that seems very hesitant to enter fish traps (I have a converted 1.9 l plastic orange juice bottle)

I think you can guess the end of the story ... eventually there were only 3 
No definitive symptoms I could treat, as with all choco’s I’ve kept, there’s a certain level of aggression within the group, yet alone they are simplely miserable 
So I did a formalin treatment, then moved the remaining 3 to the 60cm tank - there were some Sundadanio living here already & a trio of S vaillanti I’d not managed to capture
Of the trio, one male survived


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## Conort2 (9 Oct 2018)

alto said:


> But is this related to Environmental Stress from a too small tank ....
> 
> It’s common to see fish displayed in tanks that are too small, too crowded ... also some fish such as juvenile discus seem more comfortable in a 60cm x45cm tank rather than the 120cm x 45cm tank UNLESS there are sufficient numbers
> 
> ...



One fish I have never tried to keep. They look great and different to anything else but I just don't have the water for them. I don't think they'd last five minutes. A lot of them hat come in don't seem to be in great shape either. 

Do you keep them in ro?

Cheers

Conor


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## alto (9 Oct 2018)

A few months ago, I had opportunity to collect another shipping bag of S selatanensis

I removed everyone I could capture from the 60x45x55cm tank
Gave it a good clean including filter (in terrible at filter maintenance) & added the selatanensis 

Out of 27 fish, I’ve lost one 
Again they were active & eating from the second day (I don’t feed for 24-36 hours)
Watching them in this tank, it’s easy to see how unsuited the 45P was for this fish - despite my having successfully quarantined S vaillanti in the same sized tank 

So though I’ve no idea how relevant any of this is, when I next track down C hastatus, they are going into at least a 60P


Sorry for the multiple posts but I seem to arbitrarily lose “contact” in the posting box


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## Something Fishy (9 Oct 2018)

All good points thanks for the input.

The tank in the lfs was smaller still than mine and not planted or oxygenated, and they all seemed not 100% but you can never be sure. I take all those points and did reference online for the size before I added them, so I am not just being plain ignorant here either.  

Please note I’m not saying this is right so please don’t recommend saying the tank should be bigger as I’m just showing what I checked first along with lfs and seeing others having success with 5gal tanks. As they are tiny peaceful fish I also concluded this should be ok with a strong current for exercise, mass plants and very good filter and oxygenation.

https://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com...ory-corydoras-hastatus-195009/#/topics/195009 - 5gals is 22l

https://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com...-5-gallon-planted-56606/#/topics/56606?page=2

I honestly understand as a shoal or decent amount this would be too small for for these. They seem to have decent room to roam at least at the size they are now.  I feel it’s so soon after bringing them back and having heard so many others struggling with them it points to a parasite.

I am asking my lfs for more info as well. Love these little guys as amazing characters but don’t think I’d want to try more and kill more again in future. Treating them for illness first makes sense though if wild caught.

For me, any bigger tanks for such a nano species means they are so tiny they would easily just hide away and not be easy to feed monitor. and be hard to locate, and Ottos would be present anyway in larger tanks so would be outcompeting this why bottom dwellers too.  They shoal when they see another species sometimes, but these never shoaled even in the lfs and they were in a tank with tetras.


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## alto (9 Oct 2018)

Conort2 said:


> One fish I have never tried to keep. They look great and different to anything else but I just don't have the water for them. I don't think they'd last five minutes. A lot of them hat come in don't seem to be in great shape either.
> 
> Do you keep them in ro?
> 
> ...


My tap water is very soft, KH 0-1, GH 1-2 (sometimes even that 1GH is more wishful thinking), pH ~6.5
Tanks usually run pH 6 ish

I’ve been “collecting” _Sphaerichthys_ for several years now, the biggest challenge is finding healthy stock
If you’re in the UK, I’d definitely contact Colin Dunlop ( the Fish Hut) as he specializes in wild caught labyrinth fish

For the most part these fish come from quite low pH 4.0 - 6.0 areas, usually pathogen counts are very low in these types of waters ... I suspect that fish have correspondingly “untrained” immune systems - when they go into dealer tanks, the level of pathogens is overwhelming 
I rarely purchase unless I convince the shop to sell direct from the shipping bag - of course it’s also best if the bag is not disturbed through removal of any fish 
Whenever I give into impulse - as with that 2nd group of 10 selatanensis - it turns out poorly

They should be active outgoing fish, any choco’s that are lethargic or quiet or playing least in sight - are at the least, stressed or ill
Once established they seem fairly robust 

S vaillanti are quite different as I find them much more particular about food, also much slower eaters than S osphromenoides or S selatanensis 

All are territorial but also need to be kept in groups of at least 12 or so, 8 is a minimum but not terribly practical as it’s unlikely not to lose a couple individuals in the first couple months 
You can also end up with mostly male or mostly female colonies - long term I find neither works 
I lost a most stunning S osphromenoides (some location variant) colony to incredible infighting once they matured as I had only 2 females & 16 males - attempts to separate, only led to depressed fish so I’d reintegrate 
They were also the most fierce S osphromenoides I’ve ever kept/seen


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## alto (9 Oct 2018)

Something Fishy said:


> For me, any bigger tanks for such a nano species means they are so tiny they would easily just hide away and die and be hard to locate, and Ottos would be present anyway in larger tanks so would be outcompeting this why bottom dwellers too.


Not sure why Otos & dwarf corydoras would be an issue 
The “happiest” pygmy cories I’ve seen are kept in 20gal long (76cm x 30cm x 30cm) - they love the space to swim & “play” - and the otos seem very happy to shoal alongside, they’ll swim midwater with them, hangout on the tank bottom together 

The perception of small fish not thriving in bigger tanks is what Matt at Seriously Fish tries to discourage in many of his “nano” fish profiles BUT he also includes smaller tank recommendations when the activity level/natural behaviour of the fish doesn’t preclude them


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## alto (9 Oct 2018)

https://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com...-5-gallon-planted-56606/#/topics/56606?page=2

Have just read this thread - it seems to be mostly a discussion of C pygmaeus which I consider quite different than C hastatus & C habrosus


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## Something Fishy (10 Oct 2018)

alto said:


> https://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com...-5-gallon-planted-56606/#/topics/56606?page=2
> 
> Have just read this thread - it seems to be mostly a discussion of C pygmaeus which I consider quite different than C hastatus & C habrosus



Yeah good point. Pygmy Cory term is thrown about to often mean Hastatus too so wasn’t fully checked in with that thread so not a brill example.

Do you think they are different enough in size and behaviour to warrant different space requirements?


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## alto (10 Oct 2018)

My impression at this time is that C hastatus is a more sensitive fish species than C pygmaeus - this may change with the domestication of C hastatus - AFAIK they are still a primarily wild caught species 

It’s odd that they are not more prevelant in the hobby as they seem to be have much wider distribution through the Amazon than C pygmaeus, and when available are 3-4X more expensive at retail price (and substantially more at the tranship level) ... it maybe that they do not travel well through the usual distribution network from SA to Asia/Europe etc & then out to retailers 

In terms of suitable tank size, I think it may be an activity level consideration - in the wild they often shoal with similar coloured tetras
Overall size C hastatus is less robust than C pygmaeus, and usually slightly smaller 

It’s often stated that larger tanks are more stable in terms of water parameters than smaller volumes of water, this may be a consideration as well 

Fish that “prefer” larger tanks are often kept in considerably smaller footprint tanks at shops, but move a group of these fish that have been barely active (in the small space) over to a big display tank & the change is almost immediate 
Activity, vivacity, color all improve 
Depending on the species (& breeding) this change can be more/less dramatic


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## MirandaB (10 Oct 2018)

Something Fishy said:


> For me, any bigger tanks for such a nano species means they are so tiny they would easily just hide away and not be easy to feed monitor. and be hard to locate



Personally I don't feel that is justification for keeping fish in what really amounts to a tiny tank and not allowing them to exhibit natural behaviour but that's just my feelings on the subject


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