Dead Millennium Rainbow..:

[Ozzie Boss]

I just posted yesterday about having troubles with my rainbows not eating. Now I wake up to see one of the males upside down dead. Now around 9:00 at night yesterday I heard one of the rainbows jump from the tank; the same male that died today. I didn’t see him jump, but I heard him hit the top of the tank. When I managed to check I saw him swimming franticly around the tank. I’m not sure if this was the cause of his death, so I’m going to post pictures of the rainbows because I can’t see anything. Hopefully someone can help me diagnose a disease or something.


Water perimeters:
Ammonia: 0.25ppm (I’m not sure if this is correct. I have had troubles with this reading 0.25 all the time even with my established 50 gallon planted tank so take this with a grain of salt)
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate:0ppm
PH: okay I’m new to using the PH test solution so I’m not sure if I follow the “PH” test or the “High PH” test. I’ll show a picture comparing the two tests.
Gh:180
Thank you.

 

[Colin_T]

The fish would have died from brain damage when it hit the glass.

Put a thin layer of substrate in the tank, use dark gravel (brown or black).

Have a night light on for them. Use a low wattage light or leave the room light on for the first few weeks until they have settled down.

Lower the water level down so it is a couple of inches below the coverglass. This should help to reduce the damage they do if they panic jump during the night. You can also remove the glass and put mosquito netting or shade cloth on top of the tank. Weight it down around the edges and if the fish do jump up and hit it, they won't do as much damage to themselves.

Have some floating plants in the tank. You can use plastic plants for this purpose.

Add some salt. Use 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres of water. Keep the salt in the water for a couple of weeks. The salt will help calm them down a bit and reduce the chance of them developing bacterial infections when they damage their mouths by swimming into the glass.

Move the airstones to the back or sides of the tank so they aren't in the middle.

 

[Ozzie Boss]

Damn that sucks that he killed himself like that. I’m going to take the fake plants off the perch thingy, and float them and see if that helps. Is there anything wrong with the others? I get paranoid when I lose a fish and want to make sure he didn’t die to a disease that the other fish have.

 

[Colin_T]

The other fish looked fine.

Rainbowfish are notorious for jumping and being nervous when first put into aquariums. We always use salt when collecting them and when putting them into tanks for the first time. They tend to swim into the glass and get puffy white lips and people freak because it looks like mouth fungus (Columnaris), but it's normally just a fat lip. The salt helps clam them down and stops fungal and bacterial infections getting into the damaged tissue.

We usually try to put them in tanks with algae on the sides. You can also put a picture/ aquarium backing on the sides and back, so 3 sides are covered and the front isn't.

Have lots of plants in the tank, floating and planted. Duckweed is a good one for floating in the tank because they eat it and feel secure.

Make sure the water quality is good and the pH is above 6.8. They get nervous in acid water or water with a high nitrate level.