Brand new cardinal tetras dying

[KribensisLover1]

Tank size 26 gallons
I post all over this site
Ammonia 0
Nitrates 5–10 probably closer to 10
Nitrites 0
Ph 6.4

cycled tank. Got ten wild caught cardinal tetras last Friday so ten days ago. Only fish in tank. All fine and levels fine.
Wednesday I notice one fish is gone. Yesterday I notice 3 total are gone Down to 7

So a week and a day we lost them And then now my mother (whose house the tank is at) told me one is very pale in the middle stripe).

I was told I might need to treat new wild caught fish. None of the dead ones are located so I have no pics. What can I or should I treat with? It’s not ammonia. It’s got to be something they carried. general cure? Kanaplex? They’re expensive and I love them and don’t want to lose them. Next time I’ll get more from a place that def quarantines them.

 

[bgarthe]

Sorry you’re going through this.

Besides QTing issues you mentioned, what is the GH of your tank and how exactly did you acclimate the fish?

 

[TClare]

With small fish it’s always possible that they were injured or stressed during capture and transport. Its difficult to know what happened but hopefully the remaining ones will be OK. If more continue to die then something else must be going on, disease or parasite, it sounds as though the water conditions are fine for them.

 

[KribensisLover1]

With small fish it’s always possible that they were injured or stressed during capture and transport. Its difficult to know what happened but hopefully the remaining ones will be OK. If more continue to die then something else must be going on, disease or parasite, it sounds as though the water conditions are fine for them.

Yea and somebody did tell me to pre emptively treat them bc they’re wild caught but I can’t even imagine with whatc

Sorry you’re going through this.

Besides QTing issues you mentioned, what is the GH of your tank and how exactly did you acclimate the fish?

I floated and dumped bc the woman at the store told me not to drip acclimate. And how do I test gh?

EDIT::

I looked up my areas water hardness and got this.

 

[TClare]

Wild caught fish are often treated for parasites, but this generally happens in the shop before they are sold (at least that’s the case here). I’m not sure if it’s a good thing to medicate if there are no symptoms as the medication itself may cause stress.

To aclimate the fish I usually float the bag and every 10 minutes add a cup or so of tank water to the bag, this allows temperature and water parameters to change gradually so that the fish are not shocked. Don’t put the bag water in the tank, take the fish out with a net. Some very sensitive fish, or if there is a large difference in parameters, may need drip aclimatación which is even slower and more gradual (I’ve never done this), while for fish that have travelled for a long time it may be best best to float to equalize temperature then put them straight into the tank, as the bags they came in could contain ammonia.

You can get GH test kits, I imagine your water is quite soft judging by the pH.

 

[bgarthe]

Imho, “Plop-n-Drop” (floating then dumping fish in) is not going to bode well with Cardinal Tets and it ‘may’ have very well contributed to your fish mortality. TClare’s stated method is much better. With my CTs, I float the bag until temps match. Next I open the bag and clamp it open to a surface. Then I put a drop of Seachem StressGuard or Prime into the bag water. Next, I take a turkey baster and remove/discard abt half the bag water. Then slowly add tank water to the floating bag by adding 2-4 oz of water with the turkey baster every 3-5 minutes until the bag is abt the size when starting. Next, empty out half again snd repeat the process a second time. Doing this will slowly make the water in the bag the same as your tank water which is less impactful. Finally I take a tiny shrimp net and gently net out the CTs and release them into the QT. This is sort of an “in-between” method between TClare’s way and the drip method. Some members will advocate other methods, but this has worked very well for me and my CTs. This method accomplishes several important things. It gradually introduces the fish to changes in water pH, GH, KH and temperature while neutralizing ammonia in the bag.
And….yes, one can buy a GH Test Kit easily enough. My acclimation of fish really focuses on neutralizing ammonia and smooth temperature and GH transitioning.
Finally, do test the parameters of the water (tap fresh) you add to your tank (does not have to be tested every time, just once or twice to give you confirmation that the new water is ok) at WC time just to be sure.

 

[tinylostwine]

Imho, “Plop-n-Drop” (floating then dumping fish in) is not going to bode well with Cardinal Tets and it ‘may’ have very well contributed to your fish mortality.

I've been doing this for a decade with exclusively wc fishes and have almost never had a death in the first 48 hours when purchased from a reliable shop. I have had some issues with domestic raised fishes which i suspect is related to adjustment to the acidic environment i keep but if they can make it past the first week they do well (it has to do with the type of immunity the fish developes).

Anyway the paleness makes me think the fish is very stressed and this suggest perhaps an issue with water chemistry possibly ammonia though temperature or toxity can be an issue.

It would be good to know actual tds and not ph; and to test ammonia and nitrite in case something is leaching faster than the bacteria can consume (this can easily happen with aquariums that are first populated with fishes as the level of substained bacteria is related to the constant source of food).

 

[KribensisLover1]

Wild caught fish are often treated for parasites, but this generally happens in the shop before they are sold (at least that’s the case here). I’m not sure if it’s a good thing to medicate if there are no symptoms as the medication itself may cause stress.

To aclimate the fish I usually float the bag and every 10 minutes add a cup or so of tank water to the bag, this allows temperature and water parameters to change gradually so that the fish are not shocked. Don’t put the bag water in the tank, take the fish out with a net. Some very sensitive fish, or if there is a large difference in parameters, may need drip aclimatación which is even slower and more gradual (I’ve never done this), while for fish that have travelled for a long time it may be best best to float to equalize temperature then put them straight into the tank, as the bags they came in could contain ammonia.

You can get GH test kits, I imagine your water is quite soft judging by the pH.

My tap ph is 7.4–8 even. Would that make any diff ?

I've been doing this for a decade with exclusively wc fishes and have almost never had a death in the first 48 hours when purchased from a reliable shop. I have had some issues with domestic raised fishes which i suspect is related to adjustment to the acidic environment i keep but if they can make it past the first week they do well (it has to do with the type of immunity the fish developes).

Anyway the paleness makes me think the fish is very stressed and this suggest perhaps an issue with water chemistry possibly ammonia though temperature or toxity can be an issue.

It would be good to know actual tds and not ph; and to test ammonia and nitrite in case something is leaching faster than the bacteria can consume (this can easily happen with aquariums that are first populated with fishes as the level of substained bacteria is related to the constant source of food).

Yes DEF.! I had tested it numerous times during the first week but ran out of testing materials and just got a new master test kit in the mail. I’m not at that house so I had my mom dose a cap of prime yesterday and today (I was there yesterday but I ran out of prime and had to order it and it came after I left). I’ll be going tomorrow to do a water change BUT the pale fish looked great yesterday when I was there.

 

[TClare]

PH 8 is definitely too high for cardinals, especially wild ones - I thought you said earlier it was 6 something?

 

[Mudminnow]

“Plop-n-Drop” (floating then dumping fish in) is not going to bode well with Cardinal Tets and it ‘may’ have very well contributed to your fish mortality.

This has not been my experience. I use "Plop-n-Drop" for all my fishes--including wild caught Cardinal Tetras. It works extremely well. Therefore, I suspect the issue was something else.

Personally, I don't see anything that was obviously done wrong by the OP. My best guess is that it was a bad batch. It's sad, but this happens sometimes, even with the hardiest of fishes. I once purchased 12 Harlequin Rasboras that died off, one by one, for no apparent reason, over the course of a couple weeks. I've had harlequins before and after without a single loss (even in the same tank)...but that one batch....

 

[TClare]

Anyway are the remaining 7 still alive?

 

[tinylostwine]

Water out of the tap can have an artifiical ph; you need to set it out overnight and then measure the ph but ph is a worthless number. You want the tds and if you can't get the tds gh/kh. Forget about ph.

 

[KribensisLover1]

PH 8 is definitely too high for cardinals, especially wild ones - I thought you said earlier it was 6 something?

Yes the tank ph is consistently 6.4
It’s the tap ph which is higher but maybe that’s a false reading as suggested above.

Anyway are the remaining 7 still alive?

Yes! They are all totally fine and I went to the store bc all my plants are DYING and I got a few more bc it was the same exact batch of CT’s so I wanted to keep the same set and they’re all fine. They were treated at the store (they say). So all are doing great. Tested water today (ammonia) and it’s 0 still and about to do a water change. Thank you all! I hope they all stay fine but I agree it wasn’t my fault (luckily and thankfully bc I’ve made countless mistakes in this hobby!).

 

[KribensisLover1]

Ok I got the tds meter.

Tank is 205

Out of tap is 179

Waiting on the other tests to arrive

 

[tinylostwine]

That is moderately hard. Definitely not the best water for wild caught south american fish.

 

[TClare]

Yes, I wasn’t too sure about those values as I’m used to very low TDS out of the tap, under 20 usually, and I know that is not very common for tap water. I looked up and found that hard water is supposed to be TDS over 350, so while not very hard the water is harder than ideal for soft water species, it would be best to choose tank bred specimens of species that are known to be reasonably adaptable as regards water parameters.

 

[bgarthe]

Or mix your tap with RO.

TDS is one of several things to test for to get a complete idea of your water. TDS measures …..all…. particulate matter including GH (calcium and magnesium). I like to know TDS if I can also find out how much of it is GH, thus knowing more than one single larger number. That is one page of data in the water parameter book. Having all the pages in the book will give you the whole story, especially in the beginning.
The pages are pH, GH, KH, TDS, NH3/NH4, NO2, NO3, and perhaps PO4.

 

[KribensisLover1]

Or mix your tap with RO.

TDS is one of several things to test for to get a complete idea of your water. TDS measures …..all…. particulate matter including GH (calcium and magnesium). I like to know TDS if I can also find out how much of it is GH, thus knowing more than one single larger number. That is one page of data in the water parameter book. Having all the pages in the book will give you the whole story, especially in the beginning.
The pages are pH, GH, KH, TDS, NH3/NH4, NO2, NO3, and perhaps PO4.

Perfect! The gh and kh tests are set to arrive between today and 6//18