Help needed!

terrie75UK

terrie75UK

Newbie from UK (please be gentle!)
Sep 20, 2004
4
0
0
50
Cornwall, England, UK
Advice on a tetra with a bulging eyeball?!

Could anyone advise me what may be wrong when a Buenos Aires Tetra has a big bulging eye! I am a complete newbie and made the mistake of too many fish in one go and had 6 Neons eaten on Saturday. I replaced them with Buenos Aires yesterday and this morning one is a paler colour (they are the gold variety) and has a big bulging eye. I have no experience and my hubby who does is working away.

We don't have a quarantine tank at all as the whole set up only started a week and a half ago so i've taken him out of the tank to be on the safe side and he is in a bowl! Any ideas?

Terrie
 
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More Info

Thought i'd better give some more info (sorry but like i said, complete beginner). I have a 25g hexagonal tank, did a nitrite check this morning and it was yellow which according to the guide is fine (although i thought it should be higher if the fish have only been in there a few days?). The temp is constant. On saturday ( the first day of adding fish as the tank was up and running for a week before hand) we added 8 Neons, 2x 3 spotted guaramis, 2 dwarf guaramis, 2 rainbow shark. By saturday night there was just the two neons left (2 dead ones were fished out however the other 4 appeared to have been eaten!).

Went back to Aquarium on Monday morning and bought another 6 neons, 6 beunos aires tetra and 3 (?) sure the owner said they were guppies although they look nothing like the pictures of the profiles that i've seen. Hope that clarifies a few points.

Terrie
 
Ummmm...Read the thread on cycling. Nitrites won't be showing up yet, but I'm willing to bet that ammonia is through the roof. Without some serious water changes, you are likely to lose most of those fish. I'd return all of them if you can, and learn about cycling before getting any more fish.

The neons weren't killed by the other fish--they were likely killed by the ammonia and then snacked on by the other fish.

Sharks should be kept singly--the larger will eventually kill the smaller.

Spotted gouramies get up to 4-6 inches--way too big for your tank.

One bit of advice--when fish are dropping like flies, finding out why and correcting that is a much better reaction than adding more fish.
 
Thanks so much for the advice. I have read the cycling routine, the shop gave me some stuff to add to the tank to start the bacteria off and then gave me a nitrite kit and told me to test it when i put the fish in which i did do. Will go back after i pick the kids up from school and get an ammonia test kit and check that.

If the ammonia is really high, what would you suggest as the best course of action? the other fish seem fine and dandy and eating well. When you say 'return them' what do you mean?

I wish the guy in the shop had said that about the sharks though, he knew the set up etc and i was kind of relying on him (mental note not to go back to same shop!).

I know the tank is overstocked, I am going to get another tank, much bigger just after Xmas and will transfer them then. I suppose i could then use my existing tank as a quarantine one.

Thanks again
 
Return them--take them back to the LFS. This tank is NOT cycled, and there are very few products that are more than snake oil in terms of preparing a tank for stocking immediately. Bio-Spira is the only one I know that works at all--the other commonly sold ones add nitrifiers that can't survive an aquatic environment, so are useless.

Being crowded for even that length of time can damage the fish.

Never rely on a single source of info for fish information. Most LFS mean well, but many are not well informed, or specialize in another area and can't help with the specific fish you want. Always try to find at least 3 sources for info--and hope that they provide similar info.
 
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