Urgent Dying Silver Tips

[emzyemz]

Hi

We have today added a new filter to our 25 litre tank which houses a siamese fighter and 5 silver tip tetras.
Our heater broke yesterday so we bought a new one today and thought we would treat the tank to a new filter at the same time.
We have installed the new filter and are running it alongside the old one until it can build up its bacteria etc. The new heater is now installed too.

In the last hour we have lost 4 of our 5 tetras and the last one is not looking good. They have been swimming around like they are drunk and dying pretty quickly.
The fighter is sitting at the bottom of the tank (not unusual for him) looking miserable too.

Checked water for amonia and nitrates and readings are coming back fine. This tank has been running for the last 3 months and we have never had any problems.
The last fish added were the tetras last month (mid July).

I would really appreciate some advice on what may have killed the tetras.......we really dont know what has happened but assume it is something to do with the new filter.

 

[ron4sum1]

Could you upload a picture of your fish? Are there any visible symptoms that might help identify the cause of death?

How did your filter break? Did it break to the point that it might've electrocuted the fish slightly? Hence the "drunkenness"?

You washed the new filter before installing, right?

What test kit do you use to test the water? Have you performed several tests to increase reliability?

Do you de-chlorinate the water before adding it to the aquarium?

You didn't spill anything accidentally to the tank, right ?

I think your tank was overpopulated, since the siamese fighter requires at least 45L and Silvertip Tetras need about 4L each fish. But if you regularly check your ammonia and nitrate readings, this assumption might not play a big part to the cause of death.

I hope you could save your last couple of fish