eaglescout316

Those tracking my progress through my forum posts know i haven't made the smoothest start to this hobby. I bought 6 cardinal tetras two days ago (yes, i had the .25ppm ammonia reading but was convinced that it's a contaminate in the water, bacteria wouldn't be able to process all but the .25ppm coming out of my tap, that's not how microbiology works). Went to school, came home, i had 5 tetras.

Searched the tank all over, couldn't find it. Searched the floor, couldn't find it. Almost made a post about it but found another where someone said their cardinal tetras were disappearing and they were told the fish can eat a whole dead fish that size pretty quick. Did a tetra count later in the evening, counted four. While i was double checking, #5 came spastically swimming upside down in front of me, then stopped moving and went to the bottom. I flushed him. I did some studying and counted again. I saw three, and one doing some "stunts" as it was shuffling off to the big aquarium in the sky, then it sank to the bottom. I was just about to go to bed, so honestly i left it in there to get in the morning. Afterall, 30 seconds earlier and i wouldn't have noticed and it would've gone until morning.

Morning came, he was gone. I've since stopped feeding my fish their flakes... Went to classes, came back and now there are two. Decided to do a full battery of water quality tests, thinking maybe a mini-cycle was killing them (still had the contaminate theory). AMMONIA AND NITRITES BOTH TESTED 0!!! Nitrates around 15ppm By rights, ammonia should be the same if not higher, instead they're perfect for the tetras. So i guess yay, my cycle's complete, but the fish went and died anyhow. To make matters worse, i can't return the fish (LFS salesman said if they died in the next few days i could bring them and a water sample in) because the others are eating them before i know they're dead!

kieley

do cardinals eat the bones and head of other cardinals? weird!

eaglescout316

If they didn't, the danios must've, because i haven't found any remains save one possible bone.

Even if they were jumping the tank and i couldn't find them on the floor, the dead one from last night didn't resurrect and make a jump for it!

Steen16

i had 5 danios, my tank is completely cycled, all of a sudden they were disapearing.. im down to one now and i have never found the missing dead or alive danios..
only other fish iv got are 4 black neons, corys and none of them have disapeared..

i checked the filter, the floor, behind rocks, none of the tetras seem fat or like they have eaten 4 danios.. its a mystery mybe there being taken by aliens?

pinkfloydpuffer

Curse those aliens, always messing with our tanks! lol

eaglescout316

i know it's best to vary their diet, but i'm pretty sure $3.50 per meal is more than i wanted to pay!

Steen16

Yea those aliens must be picky! only taking danios and cardinals!!

its my mission to get to the bottom of this!

pinkfloydpuffer

Good luck with your mission sir!

Steen16

once im finished with them it will be on the menu!

im looking for them now lololol

Lucy

Sorry you lost the cardinals. I've read on the forum they can be pretty hard to keep. They also could have been ill when you bought them and the stress of the move was a bit much for them
Did you acclimate them slowly to the tank?
If your pH greatly differs from the store, they've got to have time to adjust to the change.

Great news about the cycle, though.

Remember next time to quarantine any new occupants to the tank for 2 weeks. 1 sick fish could wipe out your stock.

eaglescout316

Actually, i just thought to check what pH the site recommends, and my water's more alkaline. I spent an hour and a half acclimating them though, and my pH is 7.4. Looked in to see if both of them are still alive, and one's starting to do "the dance" as i call it, where the fish suddenly turns into a stuntman.

I can't afford a quarantine tank.

Lucy

An hour and a half sure seems lone enough.

A QT tank doesn't have to be expensive. I've used a 1.5g in the past. I recently bought a medium sized Kritter Keeper (about 4g) for $10.00 and added a small whisper filter. The tank stays a between 76-78F.

Keep your eye out for yard sales and look on Craig's list.
It's better than losing all your fish and less expensive than replacing them all should something happen.

clinton1621

The dance as you called it could be something called shimmying... its usually caused by parasites, so I would be taking a close look at all the fish in the tank. Cardinals, just like the plain neons are much more susceptible to infections and parasites than most other fish, and are usually the first ones to show symptoms and die.

eaglescout316

There's some white translucent spots on the inside of the glass. I don't think they've really grown in the past few days since i realized they're not finger prints. I did a forum search and didn't really see anything, so i haven't been too concerned. There's no movement, nothing like "swaying in the current."

The one remaining tetra isn't moving all that fast, so i've been able to look at him. I don't see any discoloration or anything like that. The danios are a little harder to look at, because they've apparently gone into fast-forward overnight. They're not shimmying, just swimming like usual but twice as fast. The tetras had all started swimming weird, listing off to one side, sudden altitude change, vertical orientation, upside down, stuff like that. It's daylight now, so the pleco is hiding in his castle tower. I caught a glimpse of it and didn't see any discoloration. Since it's a darker color and the biggest fish in the tank by far, i would guess any spots of stuff would be more visible on him.

eaglescout316

update: the pleco came out and stuck to the side of his castle, so i tried to take a look at him and he ran back in. He came back out, so i used the full zoom on my camera to take a pic from halfway across the room, and he looks fine.

I'm looking into getting a quarantine tank though.

Lucy

Here's a couple of posts that might be worth reading.

What is this stuff on my glass?

Columnaris.... need a little advice

eaglescout316

Right, i was worried at first because of the columnaris idea, but nothing's swaying in the current, and the tetras haven't looked off in any way, aside from the dead and not moving thing.

I guess i'll be running to petco for some sort of medicine, since i'd rather not lose all my fish right when the cycle actually finished.

Lucy

Ummm, being dead and not moving is a little off.

Other than that, some people have just wiped white things off their glass with no ill effects to the fish.

jdhef

Be careful which medicine you get. An atibiotic will wipe out all of your benificial bacteria and you'll be back to square one with your cycle.

eaglescout316

Well, i stopped by the LFS since it's on the way to petco. Told the saleman (not the guy that sold me the tetras) and he seemed less than surprised. When i mentioned that all was well until i put the tetras in, he was less than amused but not hostile. Said they were probably worms resulting from overfeeding, and asked what my pH was. According to him, 7.4 kills cardinals, and that was the problem.

Instead of getting any kind of medication, i've decided to just wait it out and pay careful attention to them. I did pick up a cheap 2 gallon plastic tank for quarantining though. Figured "better safe than sorry" with fish medication probably isn't the best idea, so if the danios start looking bad i'll make sure of things before trying something "just in case."

clinton1621

Never believe anything you hear from a LFS.... the worms that you get from feeding too much will not kill your fish, also a pH of 7.4 DOES NOT kill cardinal tetras. You can keep cardinal tetras, and most other fish for that matter in any pH range between 6 and 8 without any problems.

eaglescout316

i don't know about never trusting anything the LFS tells you. It's kinda what they do. Where's your source of information? A book perhaps, probably written by someone that owns an LFS or at one time worked at one.

Have you ever heard the phrase, "never believe anything you read on the internet?"

I don't see why the LFS would try and screw me over, considering they've been in business awhile and that's hard to do if your business model is "kill the customer's fish and they'll keep coming back to buy more." If i went to a place and all my fish from there kept dying, and strangely LED to the death of my other fish, i'd stop buying from them.

clinton1621

My source of information would be 20 years of keeping fish... people who work at LFS and LPS usually have very little actual experience keeping fish, they just sell them, so they are going to tell you anything to get you to buy something... I have no ulterior motives, so why would I give you incorrect information?

Edit: Oh an I'm going on the FACT that I've kept cardinals in water with a pH of almost 8 and none of them died... and I also had planaria and nematodes(the worms from overfeeding) occasionally and none of my fish ever died from them.... does that seem like good enough information?

eaglescout316

A small niche shop like this fish store (it's locally owned and operated) thrives on customers that come back. It's not like Home Depot where if they lose one customer or 100 customers, it doesn't matter.

I come to this site for some basic knowledge, things of that nature. Also for questions that aren't the LFS's job to answer ("can a cycle stall out" things like that). But when it's someone on this forum vs the LFS guy, for me it's no competition. The LFS makes their guarantees based on what they say. I can't take dead fish in and say "well, you said it wouldn't work but someone on fishlore.com said it would, so i want my money back." If i do what they say and the fish don't make it, they will refund my money. He's not going to be held accountable for your 20 years of knowledge anymore than i would expect a computer store to honor my advice vs their policy.

I hope you understand where i'm coming from.

eaglescout316

And i appreciate that and i believe you that you had cardinals survive in that water. Unfortunately, that holds no weight to the LFS if i bought another batch of cardinals and tried again. Also, this is similar to "does smoking cause cancer." Every medical professional will tell you it does, and i know more than one ~40 year old chain smoker that will tell you it doesn't, because they've been smoking for 20 years and they have lungs as healthy as 10 year olds.

On that note, how did you get rid of the overfeeding worms? I know reducing food will eventually get rid of them, but i don't want to starve my fish either.

clinton1621

How is that similar to smoking? The pH level of your water does not make it toxic, or cause cancer... and it does not cause fish to die as long as you acclimate them properly. If you want to limit what kind of fish you can keep in your tank then by all means listen to the LFS.

Blub

Fish can survive up to 2 weeks without food - not feeding them as often as normal shouldn't be that bad.

Clinton is right abotu the LFS. Whilst they know a few tiny things, they are almost always misinformed. (That does not aply to death chains)