New set of cardinals. dying one by one

[Nickguy5467]

as far as i know anyway.. so i just bought 10 cardinal tetras from my lfs. i set up my 10gl qt tank . i actually set it up and filled it a few days ago. but transfered my hob filter from my main tank to my main tank to the qt tank. i used seachem prime in the tank, and acclimated them for an hour.

but so far ive lost 2 of them.. however that water is is getting kinda warm as its pretty hot in my apartment. so its about 80f in there right now. i put some frozen water bottles in it to cool it down ill probably take them out when they get to like 77.

other than the temp of the water. i dont know why they are dying. im actually going to test the water right now . i dont know why i didnt start with that

edit: test reads 0,0,05 i dont see anything wrong also considering its running with a cycled filter from my main tank. am i just unlucky?

also i think my little electric thermometer is buggy. i have also have on of those black strips you attach to the glass and it reads like low 74 high 76. and as far as i know i have my heater set to 76f . my little cheap thermometer reads 80. the thing flickers out just when i press the on or off button, im guess its not reliable anymore

maybe ph shock? im not the smartest person. maybe dumping the water they came in and them into the new qt tank was a bad idea?

 

[StarGirl]

Yeah dont ever dump bag water into your tank. Could be pH shock. Cards are good at 80 though so dont worry about that.

 

[Nickguy5467]

Yeah dont ever dump bag water into your tank. Could be pH shock. Cards are good at 80 though so dont worry about that.

oh i know not into my main tank. i mean should i just dump it into the qt tank and do a water change? anyway i did neither. i mean my method was cut the bag and let the fish fly onto a colander in a bucket and then dump the fish in the tank. maybe they had fun?

well thats good to know about heat. i just hope that the 80 one is wrong because i have the heater set on 76 and the other therm reads between 74 and 76.. so is it safe to say the little black electro thermeters where you stick the dongle thing inside, can be ? i hope so. they are kinda old. i just had it laying around

 

[StarGirl]

IDK I use a meat thermometer for my water temps....lol Cards are very good at high heat. Thats why you can have them with GBR that need at least 82+.

 

[Nickguy5467]

IDK I use a meat thermometer for my water temps....lol Cards are very good at high heat. Thats why you can have them with GBR that need at least 82+.

i think my actual heater is mor accuratte as it turns off when i move the dial below 76 target. and the thermo keeps changing temps when it turns on and also when i barely knock it. safe to say the thing is broken i guesss. anyway as you can tell i freak out a lot. guess ill just ignore the cheap old thermo. still no idea why my 2 cards died and for all i know there are more to come T_T. of course ill update . thanks Star

 

[Rgtx]

Man I had similar issue with my first batch of cardinals. Bought 16 within 2 days and had 1 died the first day, 3 the next and 4 the following day. Looking back at it I believe those deaths are due to the way I introduced the 1st set of 9 to the tank. Researching how sensitive they can be I setup my fluval breeder holding tank to try an drip acclimate them and I believe that gave them to much shock/stress since the temp ended up several degrees cooler then the main tank and more moving them around from bag to breeder to main tank. I bought 7 more recently and I introduced them by regular bag acclimating process like all do all fish and haven't had no deaths. Your method of adding them the tank my have caused to much stress similar to my situation.
I keep my tank at 77-78 and they are thriving I would say at the moment. Like others mentioned make sure your water parameters are good and the tank has cycled. Also could just be bad fish stock from that lfs. The ones I suspect died on me were locally bred and the ones that I believe survived and the most recent 7 are wild caught.

 

[Nickguy5467]

Man I had similar issue with my first batch of cardinals. Bought 16 within 2 days and had 1 died the first day, 3 the next and 4 the following day. Looking back at it I believe those deaths are due to the way I introduced the 1st set of 9 to the tank. Researching how sensitive they can be I setup my fluval breeder holding tank to try an drip acclimate them and I believe that gave them to much shock/stress since the temp ended up several degrees cooler then the main tank and more moving them around from bag to breeder to main tank. I bought 7 more recently and I introduced them by regular bag acclimating process like all do all fish and haven't had no deaths. Your method of adding them the tank my have caused to much stress similar to my situation.
I keep my tank at 77-78 and they are thriving I would say at the moment. Like others mentioned make sure your water parameters are good and the tank has cycled. Also could just be bad fish stock from that lfs. The ones I suspect died on me were locally bred and the ones that I believe survived and the most recent 7 are wild caught.

yeah i feel like i should have just added the entire bag to the tank. but i actually have no idea. the bag wouldnt have filled the 10 gallon and to fill it i would have to add a ton of non bag water anyway

lul just checked and sweet no more have died since i started this thread ^_^

 

[Rgtx]

I add the bag to the tank to acclimate for 15 to 20 mins, from there I cut the bag and drain and net the fish over a 5g bucket so I never add the lfs store water to my tank.

 

[Nickguy5467]

I add the bag to the tank to acclimate for 15 to 20 mins, from there I cut the bag and drain and net the fish over a 5g bucket so I never add the lfs store water to my tank.

thats what i figured. i just use a colander because im wierd.

 

[StarGirl]

thats what i figured. i just use a colander because im wierd.

You should use a fish net. The colander may scrape them up too much.

 

[Nickguy5467]

day 3. then there were 4. T_T well there goes that 40 bucks

kind of afraid to get any more fish because ill just be killing them all >.>

 

[Rgtx]

day 3. then there were 4. T_T well there goes that 40 bucks

kind of afraid to get any more fish because ill just be killing them all >.>

I know it sucks losing fish and the money spent on them. I lost like a third of my fish in the 1st 3 months of keeping fish which was like 12-13 total fish and 7 of those were cardinals . April was the first month I didn't lose a single fish and so far May has started out fine. Seems to me it's either bad fish stock from lfs or something is not right with the qt tank.

 

[Nickguy5467]

I know it sucks losing fish and the money spent on them. I lost like a third of my fish in the 1st 3 months of keeping fish which was like 12-13 total fish and 7 of those were cardinals . April was the first month I didn't lose a single fish and so far May has started out fine. Seems to me it's either bad fish stock from lfs or something is not right with the qt tank.

probably my punishment for suffocating all the cards i had before

maybe i didnt have the filter on the qt long enough before i put them in there? but that doesnt really make any sense as primed the water , moved the filter from my main to my qt and then aclimated them for like an hour . wonder if its because i used a colander instead of a net. my net is so small i was afraid i would drop them down the sink >.> i actually lost an amano shrimp down the sink because i didnt realize they were super jumpers out of water T_T

 

[TClare]

I put the net over a bucket just in case, the bag water goes in the bucket, the fish in the net. It’s hard to know what is going on, but small fish like cardinals are probably quite delicate in terms of handling, it is possible that rough catching and handling at the store could also have damaged them. Or they were not healthy to start with, do you know how long they had had them at the shop? With fish like tetras I have only bought them when I know they have had them for some time. I also know that the shop I buy from always quarantine their fish for two weeks before selling them. I have only lost one bentosi tetra the day after I got a group of 12, all my other tetras have been fine, my local shop is only about half an hour away so not much travelling time and similar water parameters probably help. I only usually acclimatize them for about 40 minutes.