my cardinals are dying....

so today I wake up and come down stairs to find one of my fish lying on one of my plants leaves, dead
so I think it must be something to do with stress as I got them on saturday. then I came home from school to find another one floating at the top at this point I'm pretty **** off bad day and now my fish are dying for no particular reason. so I do a quick 10% water change , made suure the water was right temp and treated well and before I added water I noticed another cardinal on its own just seemingly floating so I hurry up with the change and within 30 mins of the change he was gone. no idea why so I ring every one I know too find out what's happening and they all suggest adding more water conditioner. So I pondered for a while and then rang up the manager at my local fish store who suggested that I should of waited until my tank matured with fish in it. he said 4 weeks...... so now I am fearing for my other cardinals lives. If they all die the manager offered to give me some more for free in 3 or more weeks but if they all die ill give it a miss and get some different fish from my mums friends son who had just had an abundance of fish births and needs to get rid of some of them I hope my fish survive

 

It sounds like the manager was correct....in part....Your tank doesn't sound as if it has cycled....Have you read the articles here about cycling your tank and the nitrogen process? https://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm This article explains it all. What you don't want to do is add more fish until the cycle has finished.

At this point what I would do is go to the local fish store and get some "Prime" water conditioner and do a massive - 50% water change using Prime as the water treatment. Prime will lock up toxic ammonia and nitrite in the water making it easier for the fish to tollerate. If you can't find Prime try to find Amquell+. You will still have to perform frequent water changes of 25-30% to keep the water chemistry in check during the cycle. Just don't vacuum the gravel or perform filter maintenance during that time.

You should also try to get (when you can or if you haven't already) a good test kit. Many of us here use and recommend the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Freshwater Master Test Kit. (petsmart usually has them for under $20 and I've heard that the stores will honor the on line price with a print out) These kits are far more accurate than the test strips that many stores sell or the ones that come with aquarium kits.

If you don't have a kit, take a water sample with you to the store and ask them to check: pH, Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates. Write down the results and post them here so we can help further. Good Luck!

 

I had the same thing happen when I started my tank with cardinal tetras, I lost a few of them because I didn't know much about the cycle a new tank goes though. THe good thing is that now that I have had the tank running for a while, my cardinals are happy and very pretty. I think they just take extra patience, but they are worth it for their beauty.

--R

 

tank was fully cycled. took water to the store and got it tested before I got the fish just be extra sure my tests were right. and before I accimilated fish I did another 5% water change just to make it safer but they still died. I'm guessing there just incredibly hard to keep :-[

 

Would you consider buying your own liquid test kit? I hear they're not too expensive in the US. Often, the store tests with paper strips, which are no good.

 

howey - 5% and 10% water changes aren't enough.....Typically you would want to do a 25%-30% water change weekly. What are the parameters of your water? If you could post them it would tell us a lot more....