What is going on?

tel0004

tel0004

Lost in Translation
Sep 7, 2004
343
0
0
42
Cincinnati, Ohio
I have a fully cycled tank. I have 10 zebra danios and about 8 ghost shrimp. The tank is 30 gallons. I bought 6 cardinal terras on wednesday. On Friday 2 of them were dead, Saturday morning, one was dead, and when I got home from work sat night, another is dead. I now only have 2 left. If it was something with water quality, I probably would have lost a few zebra danios. I have spent a lot of time watching the fish, and the zebra danios leave the cardinal terras alone. The ph is right around 7.0, amonia is at 0, nitrite is at 0, and nitrate is at 10ppm.
 
How did you introduce them to the tank? Is there a difference between your water at that of the LFS? Have you checked with the LFS to see how the others are doing?

Have you tested the water? "Cycled" is not a permanent condition--adding more fish results in more ammonia than the current bacteria colony can process, and 8 fish is certain to overwhelm the colonies. Outside of the initial stocking following a fishless cycle (meaning, fish added withing about 3 days), adding a large number of fish is generally a bad idea.
 
cardnial tetras need a steady pH of 6.0

They are VERY picky about water quality.

I found this out the hard way after getting about 30 and having 3 left right now
 
I introduced them slowly, and added a bit of my water to theirs. Also, I talked to the pet store, they are on the same water supply that I am, and they dont modify their PH, so their PH is right around 7.0 also. Ill have to go to the petstore on Tuesday and talk to them. This just really makes me mad.
 
cardnial tetras need a steady pH of 6.0
Click to expand...
poppycock - what they need are stable water conditions.

ditto OG, have you tested the waterQ since the addition of the new fish?

Were these wild caught cardinals or tank spawned? How long had they been at your lfs(new arrivals or been there for a few weeks)? What were the visible condition of those at the LFS(any dead one's in the tank - any "skinny" looking - etc)? How long did you float them? Just my opinion but adding tank water to lfs bagged water isn't a great idea - even if you "think" the water is the same it's not. Depending on how long the fish were bagged the pH drops as ammonia rises - you add tank water with a higher pH to that bagged water and you hit the fish with ammonia burn. Best to just float the bag to acclimate temp then toss the fish in either with a net or by hand.

End of my ramble....
 
Ok, next time I wont add water to the bag. Yes I have tested the water quality, in my first post, ammonia is at 0, nitrite is at 0, and nitrate is at 10ppm. Ive been working a lot, so I havent gone to the fish store yet to talk to them, but ill be up there tom.
 
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