Concerned

[Mirriah]

About two and half weeks ago I purchased 7 Cardinal Tetras ( I ended up with 8 in the end though). But, I soon realized (after a little research) that I had 4 Cardinals and 4 Neons, at least at last attempt at sorting them out.

Anyway the concern comes in because I noticed one or two or my cardinals seemed less colorful, as in the red is slightly faded. I'm taking this as a sign they're maybe a bit stressed or unhealthy?

I have to take a look at the water conditions (tomorrows job) But tonight I did a partial water change, maybe 20%. The temp is a steady 76F and everything seems okay; no strange behavior or outward signs of stress. They get along well enough, schooling together most of the time and there are no other tankmates to bother them.

But assuming that there may or may not be a specific cause to the fading color I'm thinking I should improve their diet no matter what and I was wondering what would be best for the neons/cardinals. Any advice would be wonderfully appreciated.

 

[Lateral Line]

Difficult to say. Post your tank stats when you've done them. Also, can you give a bit more info about the tank, how big, how long it has been running, what else has been in there, how it was cycled if it is new, that kind of thing.

 

[Mirriah]

Shoot, sorry about the lack of information, I posted at about 4 in the morning.

In any case the tank isn't new, a friend of mine wanted to upgrade to a bigger tank and didn't want her smaller one. So I got it complete with the filter that had been already running for a few months, and it's been set up in my apartment for maybe three weeks.

I let the water sit with the filter running for a week, added in the decor and a live plant, then the fish. It's been treated with cycle and the tap water conditioner. I'm pretty sure it's a 5 gallon tank, I didn't ask when I picked it up. But the measurments are 15" x 7.5" x 9.5"

I couldn't get the water conditions today (long story) so I suppose there really isn't anything to do until I can get those.

 

[Lateral Line]

I let the water sit with the filter running for a week,

If you just had water running through the filter, there will have been nothing for the filter bacteria to "eat", so you have almost certainly lost at least a good proportion of them. Also, if the filter was sitting idle for more then a few hours, the Oxygen levels will have dropped which will also account for some.

Neons and Cardinals are not really suited to uncycled tanks being sensitive to Nitrogen pollution, that is why you frequently see the advice not to add them until a tank has been running withut issue for 3-6 months. Now, your tank isn't exactly uncycled or newly cycled, but until we can see the stats, we don't know what we are shooting against, it may not be too bad.

Keep your water changes up to date.

 

[n3ont3tra]

I was ignorant and bought 6 neon tetras after the tank had only been up for a week, and now it's been 6 weeks, and my Tetras are fine. In fact, I've /never/ seen neons with such a bright stipe as mine. It's almost blinding. I have no idea why yours are fading. Sorry I couldn't help much...

 

[Mirriah]

Actually my neons are quite fine It's the cardinals I'm more worried about. Or rather the two cardinals in particular, the rest aren't faded at all.

 

[Tsi_User]

Fading of color can definately be a sign of stress. Are there any other tank mates?

 

[Mirriah]

Fading of color can definately be a sign of stress. Are there any other tank mates?

Nope no other tank mates. Well aside from a few snails. And as an update they seem to be doing better and only the one has a bit of faded color still. I've been keeping up with water changes and they seem to be healthy with normal behavior and good eating habits.

*EDIT*

As it's been awhile since I wrote this, and I just wanted to add that since this post I have checked the water and ammonia and nitrates are both at 0 and the pH is 7.6