Listless Diamond Tetras

M

m0rl0ck

AC Members
Oct 3, 2004
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I do 10% water changes twice a week. 29 gallon planted tank, 1 fluval 2 filter (advertised as 110 gallons / hour). 6 Diamond Tetras, 6 austrailian rainbow fish, a cory, a very small pleco, a female flagfish and lots of hair algae. Tank temp is about 79 F and the PH measures about the same as my tap water around 7.4.
The rainbow fish and all others are fine. The hair algae is doing especially well :)

My question though is about the tetras, one of them in particular is almost still and doesnt even move quickly when coming to the tank front to beg for food when someone walks by. He seems also to swim in a circular pattern at times and he is swimming slanted to one side. I have noticed lately, a couple of times, thready feces hanging from the tetras. Sometimes its as long as two inches or more.
Educated guess, do these fish have parasites or is it water chemistry?

I did a partial water change yesterday, but everybody else seems fine.
 
Update.
Two more of the diamond tetras are similarly affected. One is a few inches up from the gravel not moving much except to ocaissionaly give an upward jerk to keep from sinking farther.
Anybody have a guess as to what this might be or how to save these guys? Is it parasites? PH? Should I take them out of the tank? Are they likely to be infectious?
 
Do not think it is parasites. Maybe just bad stock. Your PH kind of high for tetras. A little lower would be better.
 
Maybe just bad stock.
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Yeah, maybe. They seemed perfectly healthy for the two months I've had them though. If they were sick somehow when I got them wouldnt it have shown before now?

The fish store guy said they would be ok in untreated tap water, ph and all, on the other hand, he sold them to me as jewel tetras :) Also I've read that they're hardy fish and accounts of people keeping them in high ph water. Would long term exposure to a high ph have some kind of cumulative effect?
 
m0rl0ck said:
Yeah, maybe. They seemed perfectly healthy for the two months I've had them though. If they were sick somehow when I got them wouldnt it have shown before now?

The fish store guy said they would be ok in untreated tap water, ph and all, on the other hand, he sold them to me as jewel tetras :) Also I've read that they're hardy fish and accounts of people keeping them in high ph water. Would long term exposure to a high ph have some kind of cumulative effect?
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Didn't know you had them for 2 months. That eliminates bad stock. Like I said--fish are adaptable. Long term high PH would not effect them. Did you treat water before change (for clorine, cloramine. ect).
 
Did you treat water before change (for clorine, cloramine. ect).
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Im sure I did. All other tank occupants seem fine. The only difference in the sick ones is that they are from the same source, their tetras and they produce a long filament like feces.

Should I remove the tetras from the tank?
Is it possible theyll infect, or have infected the others?
 
Fish with many illnesses will whorl - I wouldn't use that as a deciding factor for diagnosis. With the condition you name, large parts of the fish go black - that's what I would use do diagnose.
It sounds like parasites to me - long, stringy, white poop = internal parasites. You can try soaking their food in Metronidazole (sold as 'Hex-a-Mit' among other things) and feed the fish this way for 10 days to two weeks. I'd treat the entire tank. The medication needs to get into the fish - putting it in the water will do next to nothing. If the fish are beyond eating, you could try isolating them in a hospital tank and treating with meds for internal parasites, but they're likely too far gone.
Good luck, hope they get better.
Your pH is fine, BTW - you don't need to do anything about it.
On another note, added CO2 might help with the hair algae - check out some of the back posts about hair algae in the Planted forum :)
 
Fish with many illnesses will whorl - I wouldn't use that as a deciding factor for diagnosis. With the condition you name, large parts of the fish go black - that's what I would use do diagnose.
It sounds like parasites to me - long, stringy, white poop = internal parasites. You can try soaking their food in Metronidazole (sold as 'Hex-a-Mit' among other things) and feed the fish this way for 10 days to two weeks. I'd treat the entire tank. The medication needs to get into the fish - putting it in the water will do next to nothing. If the fish are beyond eating, you could try isolating them in a hospital tank and treating with meds for internal parasites (don't put these into your display tank), but they're likely too far gone.
Good luck, hope they get better.
Your pH is fine, BTW - you don't need to do anything about it.
On another note, added CO2 might help with the hair algae - check out some of the back posts about hair algae in the Planted forum :)
 
Good luck, hope they get better.
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Thanks.
Im going to look for some hexamit and dose the whole tank.

As far as the hair algae goes, diy CO2 is the only kind I can afford right now and after hearing about PH crashes and the inconsistency of diy CO2 supply I'm trying to avoid the extra complication. For the moment I'm picking it out with my hands and adding some activated carbon to the filter occaisionally, which seems to help a little.
 
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