Cardinal Tetras-Are they still as fragile as they once were??

If anyone ever as issues I call upon the powers of tannins/humanic acids via driftwood, peat, tannin releasing leaves (as found on ebay) or blackwater extract if you no like yellow water! :dance2:I believe if you have wild ones this will help immensely.


All natural for all SA!
 
I have mine in hard alkaline water and they have coloured up so well and are growing so fast. Depends on the stock etc.


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Wetman said:
Isn't Indiana in the limestone belt? Hard water doesn't suit these blackwater fish. Peat filtration might help.
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You are right about the Limestone. We also have well water BUT at the time it could not have had any bearing. I was using a combo of RO and just enough of my well water to get the PH up a tad. The 6 in the tank now get my well water and are thriving in it for nearly a year and those before for over 2 years. I have found that just about any fish can and does acclimate to my water as long as I do it slowly and over an extended period of time. It's primarily why I use QT. More for that than disease and take weeks to up to months gradually switching them to my well water only before I place them in my 125g.
 
Hi
i wish now I had documented the cardinal , They lived from summer of 99 to winter of 10 which is actually 10 years and a few months. I bought them from a reptile store where they were contained in a 10 foot tank with a young cayman. I only bought them because he sold me all 18 for 10 bucks. They were maintaind in a 75 gallon along with 2 Clown loaches. with 10 inches of water
with a 4 foot epiphyte container on top. The water was a semi open system replaced at around 5 gallona a day from a rainwater sytem. pH averaged around 6.5 with lots of tannins from the driftwood. there were two islands which contained marsh types plants which grew incredible root systems into the water The lower level was rather dark from all the above vegetation The cards and loaches spent all their time under the islands lol Coming out only to eat.
I converted this setup back into an aquarium in 10 transferring the cards to a 20 within a week they were all dead!!! Found it interesting that the EASY fish Neons lived less than a year while the DIFFICULT Cards lived soooo long lol I think the reason is the heat due to the intense lighting . Everything I've ever read about cards says they prefer warmer water while neons do not . Anyway for whatever reason they lived a long time .
I wanted to put cards into it when converted into an aquarium but none of the LFS will carry them. So went with Black neons and Glolights. Only been 7 months so nothing to brag about yet?? lol gary
 
My LFS told me that they used to carry wild caught Cardinals, but they were a bit fragile. Over the last several years, they believe that someone in Florida has figured out how to tank breed them and now they are very hardy. At least, that's the story I was told.
 
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