Flame Von Rio Issues

I purchased six Flame Von Rio tetra’s last Friday. I’ve never had this species before and absolutely fell in love with them! Unfortunately, on Tuesday I found two dead. On Wednesday I found another dead and today, yet another. Now I’m down to two of them, one of which has been sitting in the same spot most of the day – just out in the open in the upper middle of the tank.

They all seemed quite healthy and active when I put them in. I was wondering if anyone could tell me if this is an especially sensitive species or if you’ve experienced anything similar and have any ideas about what could have gone wrong. I want to try some more, but I don’t want to kill any more of them!!

My current stats are:
Tank temp: 76
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 20
Ph: 8

And some history: My tank is 75 gallons and has been set up over 4 years. For the past two years life has gotten pretty stressful with my husband working out of state for 9 months and working 80 hours a week when he was home, while I work full time and attend college full time. Admittedly, our tank has not gotten as much attention as it should have through this time; however, we’ve kept everything up the best we could and we’ve experience few losses (about 4 tetras died during the past two years) and the tank has seemed very stable. We purposefully added no new fish for at least two years, knowing we couldn’t take care of it as much as normal.

Inhabitants: (4) lemon tetras, (4) neon tetras, (1) bloodfin tetra, (2) gold neon tetras, (3) rummynose tetras, and (1) clown loach

When school let out for me about a month ago we decided to spend some extra time on our tank to do some thorough cleaning. My husband’s laid off/retired now and I only have two semesters left so we are better situated to take proper care of our tank and wanted to add some new friends. Each week we’ve done some heavy duty cleaning on gravel, the filter, and pruning our crazy java fern. We did it in stages so to not throw off things too much, but we did have, I think, a minI cycle after the 3rd week’s cleaning. Our water got very cloudy for a day and a half and then cleared up.

On the fourth week (last Friday), we added the six flame von rio’s, three painted swordtails, and a guppy pair. Maybe two much all at once? I think we are still well within stocking limits and everyone has seemed happy. (Except our lemon tetras who are now being picked on relentlessly by the male guppy, but that’s another story.)

Sadly, when we arrived home with our new fish we discovered our beloved Clown Loach had taken a leap out of the tank and was dead on the floor. I know now that our tank isn’t big enough for Clown Loach, so we won’t get another, but we had him a long time and he was one of our favorites so that was pretty sad.

So, any ideas about what could be going wrong with our Flame Von Rio’s? I think our Ph is a bit high so maybe the Flame Von Rio’s are sensitive to this?

 

Well it seems as if you did add a bunch of fish at once. Also I assume that you did not QT the new fishes? The other thing is that your guppies will be highly prolific and I'm pretty sure you did not account for the future generation of guppies to come. also since you have not added fish for so long, how did you introduce the fish into the tank? did you drip acclimate them?

 

I don't have a QT tank. Yes, I do drip acclimate.

 

When you said that you cleaned the filter did you replace it?

 

Yes, we had to replace the old one, it was falling apart after 4 years of use. It could not be saved.

 

Have you noticed any of the fish picking on them? I know you mention that the guppy was picking on the Lemon Tetras - is it possible they first picked on the Flame Von Rio Tetras before their death?

 

I have both the red and orange von rio tetras. I've not noticed any issues with them being especially sensitive. When I first got them I did lose 2, but that was out of 20 fish. Yesterday I found one of the reds dead in the tank, bringing our total to 17 in the tank. But I've had them for about 3 months.

You did add a lot of fish at once, but I would think the neon tetras would have been the first to go if it was a water quality issue.

 

another thing is that, did you ask about the stock you got? before purchasing my fish from my LFS/chain stores I typically ask questions such as: salinity (salt/brackish water), water temperature, how many times they are fed per week and when did they receive that specific shipping.

for example, purchasing my otos, they tend to have a high death rate from the shipping. so I typically wait 2-3 weeks until those otos which have been stressed and died have been removed, what is left is otos with okay to good health.