cory attacks guppies?!

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Fire Eel
MFK Member
Aug 11, 2007
1,211
15
68
South East Michigan
My fiance has a 10 gal with guppies. he wanted a guppy-safe cleaning crew, everyone suggested cories. So he bought a bronze, a spotted, and an albino. The spotted cory didn't live long, but the other 2 seemed to be working out great. I bought him a pair of females for our anniversary, and he bought a half-black delta female, bringing his (adult) guppy count to 7. When he took them home, I sent my bronze/albino cories with him, since I read that they prefer to have a small group of their own species; and I chose spots. This morning he texts me and says that one of the 4 cories was literally attacking one of the new guppies! These cories have all been around guppies prior to this without a single issue, and everything I've read says they wouldn't hurt a fly. My fiance is devestated. Does anyone know what may've caused our cories to turn? Thank you. (I apologize for any spelling, grammar, sentance structure issues, he woke me up when he started freaking out)
 
He was feeding a flake food, and bloodworms. and the "females" I bought him, were guppies.
 
Wow. Joined another forum to get answers, wrote that my fiance had said the guppy that was being attacked was still swimming. Everyone told me that my fiance didn't see what he saw, simply because cories don't attack live fish. Even though they've been known to eat fry! What ignorant twits!
 
Almost everythinng mistakes males for food LOL but the victims were actually females.
 
sarry to here about that. it is realy rare for that to happen but not impossible i hope everything is ok know you might have just got a bad cory there is always one or two in every family lol
 
Both victims died. I figure the girls didn't handle the move well, and while they were sluggish and resting towards the bottom, that's when the cories got them. They were scavenging what wasn't dead. My fiance wasnt't putting enough food in to make sure the cories were getting enough. He flushed them after the attacks, and now realizes that he over-reacted to the cories doing their job. Now though we're not sure what bottom feeders to go with, since he's wary of using cories now... -sigh-
 
Usually when Cories go after other fish they're not being fed enough. They're not trying to eat the fish, they're going after the slime coat on the fish. If a fish loses it's slime coat, they become sickly and die.

If you (or he does) decides to ever get cories again, make sure you feed them pellets as well. Carnivore pellets in particular since they need really meaty foods.

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Have you thought about Kuhli loaches? They're small, very peaceful and go great with Guppies. They should be kept in groups, so 4 would be a good number to start with.

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