Brand New Fish This Morning....dying Now, Only Hours Later?

[Lazerus]

Hi all,

I bought four Cardinal tetras this morning from the local fish shop to complete my shoal of 10 Cardinals.

All looked bright and full of energy being picked out of the tank...they were flying around the tank before I picked them.

I checked them in the bag upclose when they were in it, no obvious signs of illness or physical ailments. They were flying around the bag a high speed as they should be.

I get the them home (15min drive) and I noticed one guy looked abit 'tired'....he was resting on the bottom of the bag.

He's now floating around the tank, going with the current and is having difficulty swimming....he's keeling over to the side and is trying desperately to maintain balance.

What has happened to him in such a short time? Is it shock?

Will he survive if I leave him alone?

I've no expeirence of this happening before.

(The other guys are fine by the way, and shoaling with my other 6 fish)

....Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrite 0ppm, Nitrate 0ppm, Ph7.8....

 

[scooterchick]

Ok dokey, these things happen from time to time, I doubt he'll survive and you'll have to put it down to experience. A couple of observations. Adding 4 fish in the one go to a small tank is a lot and would put a lot of pressure on tank conditions. Your tank is a bit overstocked as it is and your nitrate reading will never in a million years be 0, even understocked well maintained tanks will have a nitrate reading, so that would suggest you're using test strips as opposed to the test kits where you use the chemical drops. The strips I'm afraid are worse than useless. Get a kit to get accurate readings. The other danger woth mentioning is you may have risked exposing your healthy fish to a disease by introducing fish from the lfs staright into the tank without quarantining for a few days, especially if one of them looked a bit dodgy. Keep a very close eye on things and if that fish dies be sure to remove him immediately, in fact if he doesn't show any improvement in the next 12 hours, remove him and euthanise, if only to protect your other fish.

 

[Lazerus]

Hi Thanks for the reply...

He didn't survive....and now I'm worried about the rest.

One fish has no tail this morning? Completely gone over night? Just don't know whats happened...

Anyway, I use the API liquid tube tests....my nitrate readings are always between 0 - 5ppm as I do regular water changes i.e twice a week. Yesterday, it was at 0ppm as I had done a water change in preparation for the new fish.

Yes, I am aware about the risks of putting new fish into an exsisting tank and I would love to be able to set up a quarentine tank but unfortunately funds do not allow it....I did look into it, but there is no such thing as a 'cheap' tank, heater or filter here in Ireland, your talking the bones 100 quid just to set yourself up.....

With two children and one school starting etc, I just can't justify it at the moment...but on the other hand, I can't watch this happen again....my lovely fish. I'm gutted. I'll have to see if I can come up with the money from somewhere.

I feel they will all be dead by tomorrow, judging by the rate the other fella lost his tail. I feel so helpless at the moment, and I don't know where to put these other three fish to take them out of my healthy tank.

 

[shelaghfishface]

with those readings all at 0 then your tank isnt cycled,but i would expect to see an amommia nitrite reading,in this case, either that or you have a dodgy testing kit, test again and see what the results rae today
sorry for your loss

 

[minxfishy]

Lazerus did a fishless cycle shelagh

Unfortunatley it appears that you got some unhealthy fish, it happens. If it was me I would take out the fish you got yesterday and put them in the 5g I know it has no filter or heater, but with regular water changes that shouldnt be too much of a problem. If you can get some bacterial meds that may help.

 

[shelaghfishface]

ah right, i was rushing so didnt have a chance to ask, i have just read another post by BigC who says these fish are prone to dying in the bag on the way home, or soon after

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah tanks definately cycled, was fishless cycled and amm and nitrite have been steady at 0 for oooh maybe 2 months now (how long is it lazerus?)

i do agree that i would have just added 2 tetras then another 2 a few weeks or a month or so later but i doubt you would have avoided this.

not much more that we can say than it just happens like thus sometimes, fish just fail to acclimitise and adjust to the new tanks conditions and keel over almost immediately.

have i shown you the topc discussing acclimitisation methods in some detail? interesting read which you may enjoy..... i'll dig it out.