Cardinal Tetra pineconing

Maybe about a month ago, I noticed two of my tetras looked a little fat. Did some googling and settled on that they were probably females and eggy.

Today I just noticed one of them's started pineconing. I removed the tetra and put it in a 1.7gal container with some aquarium salt. Unfortunately I'm a little ill equipped for an emergency. I can get petsmart to ship me a real quarantine tank and filter tomorrow. Luckily I'm a weirdo who likes to live in a 76F apartment anyways so heat's not a problem. Is 2.5g enough for a hospital tank (I just have cardinal tetra and honey gourami) or do I need 5g?

It's a 15g aquarium, been running 8 months. I changed my water on Thursday (5 days ago, probably about 25%), and at that time my readings were 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and either 10 or 20 nitrate (honestly can't tell the difference on the test). There's total 9 cardinals and 2 honey gourami in the tank, and then a million pest snails (give or take).

I'm assuming the tetra that is pineconing is probably doomed. I'm a little more worried that the tank itself might be sick, and that the other tetra that I thought was just eggy might also be sick? It is not pineconing. Should I remove it and put it with the other one?

Attached photos of the tetra I think is pineconing from above, and then a photo of the tetra that's pineconing before I removed it on the left, what I would consider a normal tetra in the middle, and the other tetra I'm concerned about on the right.

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

 

Yes, unfortunately many of the fish who suffer from dropsy do not make it. At this stage I think the most you can do is water changes, botanicals, and epsom salt.

Dropsy is a symptom for quite a few things, so it’s hard to pin point exactly what caused it. I hear a lot of mixed results about if one fish has it, then it will infect the others. I have never found this to be true personally. It does easily affect fish who were exposed to high levels of stress as this weakens them and allows bacteria to attack their immune system. My guess is these two fish were exposed to high level of stress either shortly after getting them or beforehand. I would just leave the other one where it is and moniter everyone in the tank closely. What does your feeding routine look like, and what is your ph?

Pherhaps someome will have a better idea than me though.

 

Thanks for your reply - what do you mean by "botanicals"? I can grab some epsom salt tomorrow. I have some for the bath but it has essentials oils in it.

I got these guys back in September, so I've had them about six months. As for stress... I did a pretty massive cleaning in January, removed everything to treat black beard algae, and then just this Thursday I did a mini version of that, removed the big centre driftwood and some of the plants. That's the only thing I can think of, unless it's something I can't see, or if it was stress from six months ago that affected them to this point.

My PH test kit is expired, but tried it just now and it gave me 6.6, which jives with the 6.4 the LFS tested for me many months back.

I also dose 1.5ml of excel daily, again for the BBA, spot treatment. And I dose flourish whenever I do a water change as the city water here is ridiculously soft, like >1ppm soft. (the tank is planted)

I feed them tropical vitality & color flakes in the morning, and north fin bug *pro (crushed because way too big for them otherwise) in the evening. They eat it all quite fast. Sometimes I skip a feeding because I forget, and if I don't forget I'll usually skip once a week on purpose.

 

Botanicals are any leaves, twigs, seed pods, etc. They release tannins into the water which will tint the water brown and are a natural fungal medicine and stress reliever. Tannins are beneficial to a lot of fish species, tetras are one of them as they come from naturally blackwater streams. You can buy catappa leaves at a fish store, those will probably be the most common thing you can find.

 

Hm. Deep cleanings can be pretty stressful for fish. I had a beta die from dropsy after a deep clean and moving tanks. He was also being kept with kuhlis, and since my paramiters were pristine the decided cause of his case of dropsy was stress. One of the reasons why I preach betas should be kept alone, as I feel the kuhlis may have been a part of it as well.

To me, it sounds like the big cleaning was what probably weakened his system, and then perhaps the more recent ones may have triggered that again, allowing bacteria to set in. I have found dropsy also can take a long time before it is visble, although usally fish will show symptoms before pineconing and swelling as well.

I would avoid espom salt with essential oils. The espom salt wont do anything except maybe relieve him of some swelling, although this is not a garuntee. Its more to try and make the fish comfortable. Petco also sells Indian Almond leaves labeled as beta leaves I think.

I dont think you mentioned what the temperature of the tank was?

 

Unfortunate, anything I can to do minimize stress of big cleanings? Or maybe just do it in several smaller ones instead?

I have a 3.5G coming later today. Temperature of the apartment is 75F, I do have a heater on the main tank which keeps it at 76F, but it doesn’t come on most of the time.

I live in Canada which doesn’t have petco (at least not where I am) and petsmart didn’t have them, but I was able to find some on Amazon.

Should the epsom salt be added to the hospital tank or done with a “bath”?

 

I'm not sure why big cleanings are necessary to begin with. I understand trying to get rid of algae, but try to avoid tearing apart the tank when you do that. I think small cleanings are better, like perhaps vacuum the substrate while you do a water change, and then the next time you do a change clean off hardscape. I usually just scrape anything off of mine into the water and then vacuum it up afterwards to avoid the hassle of taking stuff out. Tetra fish are hardy, but stress especially can take a toll on them.

I would do a Epsom salt bath. I'm not actually sure if it's harmful for it to be added into the QT tank or not, but I have only heard of Epsom salt baths so I'm assuming it's better for the fish to only be in it for a short amount of time.

 

I’ve had not had much luck getting specifically black beard algae off plants without physically removing them and dosing them in excel. That’s why I removed them all a few months back, that and to sort which were worth keeping. I don’t like to uproot plants so now that I know it can kill my fish I’ll doubly avoid it.

I usually vacuum anytime I water change, that’s how I get the water out, I shouldn’t do that every time either?

I’ll try the bath later. I offered the tetra a few flakes this morning but it’s probably upset at the change in environment and didn’t take them.

 

Cdwag meant vacuuming the gravel/substrate not just the water.

 

Yeah that’s what I meant. I don’t go very deep, just skim the plants and the substrate where I know there’s a lot of fish poop. And then I do vacuum the water also to get leaves that get disturbed and then the separate area that leads to the filter (fish can’t get in there). Then my routine would be to dump that water out, fill bucket with new water, make sure temperature is the same, treat with prime & flourish, then gradually put a little water in at a time and in the meantime scrub the algae off the walls and treat any loose plants for BBA and replant.

This is my first time keeping anything that’s not a betta or a pond fish so I’m still learning.

 

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Cleaning and vacuuming is fine. I just find that when it comes to tearing out plants and such can be stressful for the fish since it's disrupting their habitat. Removing is algae is fine, I just wouldn't take everything out all at once. Do it in small stages. Some fish are more sensitive than others, and some will have weaker genes who are more susceptible disease. Nothing you can do to change that.