Introducing New Fish

[confusion]

I have terrible luck with fish getting sick and dying within the first few days after buying them. I had swordtails that all died of columnaris a few months ago, and now I've been trying to add some black neon tetras and 2 out of 7 have died now from what appears to be some kind of internal bacterial infection.

My question is this: is it common and/or advisable to add something like melafix to a quarentine tank and run through a treatment course with them? Anything else that I should be doing to avoid these deaths?

 

[Mikaila31]

First how large is the tank and what are the water stats and what fish are in it?

getting a quarintine tank helps alot i had the same problem you do, and i found it very frusturating. Now i keep new fish in my 15 gal. quarintine for 2-3 weeks. I would not suggest using a medication when you don't need to. Just keep a close eye on fish in the quarintine tank and watch for signs of disease.

also pay attention to where you get the fish. if there are lots of dead fish or sick fish at a petstore don't buy fish from them.

hope that helps