1 Cardinal Down, 1 Gilling Heavily

[jtnova13]

I woke up this morning and one of my bengai (kaudern) cardinals was dead and another was laying in the corner gilling heavily. All 3 were eating fine and swimming normally just last night.

The other tank inhabs, 2 clowns, diamond goby, bunch of corals are all fine. The 3rd cardinal seems to be ok.

I didn't have time to test the water except for temp and SG which were 79F and 1.026.

It wasn't ich, because i've lost fish to ich and know what it looks like.

I guess it will be hard for you guys to figure out the cause without amm/ite/ate readings, since nothing has changed recently, I will assume they are all 0 for the time being.

The only thing that has changed in the past week or so is that i have turned one of my 250W 15k metal halides on for 2 hours at a time twice daily to help my open brain grow since i can't get his tentacles out.

Any ideas?

 

[scott133]

Are you using plug in air fresners or sparys near the tank as this can harm your fish

i would really need to know your param as i cant tell you waht to do with out the tests as this might have been an ammonia surge during the night ph chrash stuff like that can happen over night

regards scott

 

[jtnova13]

Thanks scott, I figured it'd be tough without proper testing.

Air fresheners, maybe, although we usually use candles and they are in a different room.

I figure if it was a drastic pH change or spike in ammonia/ite/ate, the corals would be the first to go. I will have to test when I get home!

 

[jtnova13]

K, so came home and the other 2 cardinals were dead...

I don't understand why only the cardinals died. All corals are flourishing and the 2 clowns and diamond goby look fine.

Tested all my params:

Amm: 0
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 0
pH: 8.3
SG: 1.026
temp: 79F


Are cardinals disease prone or just generally unhealthy? I find it odd that just the 3 cardinals died...

I was feeding freeze dried brine, mysis, flake. They were eating all of them.

 

[milkton]

maybe not enough aeration, and cardinals are most prone to dieing from that? i dunno just taking a wild guess lol. cause my friend had green chromises die on him cause of that while all his other tank inhabitants were perfectly well.

 

[scott133]

go to ur lfs and get a polyfilter it will help take any thing that may have contaminated the tank

just to be on the safe side and cardinals usally kill each other off untill there is a pair where theey fighting at all any thing on there fines

regards scott

 

[jtnova13]

Didn't notice any nipping. I bought 3 cuz I was told to keep them in odd numbers and that they were peaceful towards eachother.

It may be aeration, the surface of the water is agitated by my powerheads, but they're not pointing directly at the surface.

But, since the pH was 8.3, I think there is not an excess of CO2 in the tank.

I did recently change out my carbon for chemipure just to try it out... could this have something to do with it?