Rummynose and Cardinal Tetras

All right. Trying this death trap again with Rummies and Cardinals. After successfully adding RCS and Japanese Algy Shrimp with no deaths even after several water changes (the one RCS death was due to a bad molt), and tons of molting, I felt sure my tank is read again to try adding fish. Of course Petco does not get in any Rummies or cardinals, so I ended up going back to the shop that uses RO/DI water. Like usual, their water peramaters are far from mine. Their pH is 6.4, 0 ammonia and nitrite, and 80 nitrate....2dKH, and 5dGH. Well son of a bisque eater. Grrrr My tank is ph 8.0, 0 ammonia, nitrite, and Nitrate (I use Matrix and live plants, so 0 nitrate. I have not lost my cycle), 7dKH and 9dGH.

What I'm doing differently this time is I have Methylene Blue in the water to try to prevent any osmotic shock with the water acclimation. I all ready see one cardinal skimming at the top, then swim down to the rest, so not sure if that one will make it. It's on the thin side anyways.

Wish me luck, and hopefully this will work with a 7 hour acclimation.

 

7 hours might be too long. 2-3 hours should be fine as the max time.

 

Maybe, but the last time I did a 2 hour, I lost them all. So this time I'm going all out because the tds between their system and mine is really huge. Plus the nitrate going from 80ppm to 0 is another problem.

Once the water gets to an inch, I was going to put my small heater in it to try to keep them at temp.

 

Man that's rough. Maybe get a spare 10 gal tank and tell the fish store to give you 5 gal of their tank water with the fish. Then you could take as long as you want with the acclimation and not worry about it.

 

Lol, I have several empty 10 gallon tanks, and no place to put them. Plus I need the water exchange be more then half. I would need 1 gallon of their water to 9 gallons of mine to make a successful acclimation and loose maybe one fish.

As is, in 2 hours I've done only half of the water they came in exchange. Plus I had to add more methylene blue because of that cardinal showing signs of osmotic shock with just a quarter of my tank water added in. So this isn't going as smoothly as I hoped.

 

Yeah, 7 hours in a small tupperware container isn't ideal. I would worry about ammonia. The methylene blue will treat ammonia poisoning, but it won't prevent it.

 

True, but I'm hoping the 2 drops a second will flush enough out to help.

Edit: What do you think TexasDomer if I go to the little 1 gallon tank I have instead of this quart container I'm using now. Think that would be better? Until I flush out the methylene blue more, I can't put any cycled media in to combat the ammonia.

 

Lol, I have several empty 10 gallon tanks, and no place to put them. Plus I need the water exchange be more then half. I would need 1 gallon of their water to 9 gallons of mine to make a successful acclimation and loose maybe one fish.

As is, in 2 hours I've done only half of the water they came in exchange. Plus I had to add more methylene blue because of that cardinal showing signs of osmotic shock with just a quarter of my tank water added in. So this isn't going as smoothly as I hoped.

Oh I wasn't saying just to drip in 5 more gallons and call it good. I just meant that with the ten gallon you could drip for days with a filter running on it and take as long as you wanted to get 95 percent water replacement.

 

I don't think the container itself matters if you only have a little bit of water in it.

 

It's been over flowing now, so old stuff is being slowly flushed out.

I wish more shops carried them, but so far the one shop that uses RO water us the only one stocking them. I've been waiting 2 months on a stock to come in at the other shops. They keep ordering them, and none comes in.

 

How do you keep the container from floating after enough? Keep emptying the bucket? Or will it not tip over?

 

Empty some of the water out. It won't float until the water is about half way up the container.

 

I'm telling ya, you gotta get big Mason jars lol. They won't float when over filling them

Just kidding with ya. 7 hours drips can't be exciting.

 

Don't have one in hand, and if the quart container seems mean, just imagine my 16 ounce pint jars I have and using that. ROFL.

Actually I've been inspecting my tank and come to the realization that I have an over abundance of limpets, lots of RamHorn snails, and my MTSs are big! Because of the calcium rich environment for the shrimp, everything has great shells! I'm going to have to do something about the limpets though, my tank is peppered with them. All over everything.

Three hours into the acclimation, half of the methylene blue is flushed out, and hopefully in an hour I can transfer them into my tank. I'm speeding it up because Texas is right. I could be causing more harm then good going slower. Cross your fingers!

 

Where are you getting the methylene blue from? There's a few pranks you can pull with that stuff.

 

lol From my LPS. Not all shops carry it though.

And now time for the death watch. The pattern always goes one breaks away from the rest of the school and hides, then after a while the death swim, then death. This happens every day until almost all are dead. If I'm lucky 1 will live. All ready one cardinal has broken away and glass surfing on the other side of the tank. So if the pattern holds true, that one will be dead tomorrow. Let's hope it is just stress related and not osmotic shock.

 

Good luck man. Can't really fault your efforts at all.

 

Hoping the acclimation was successful and you don't wake up to dead fish this morning.

 

Any news?

 

I've looked in with my red sunrise light on, but can't say for sure for another hour when my lights come fully on. So far nothing dead in easy to see places or on my filter intake.



(Sighs) One down. I expected a cardinal not a rummy

 

I'm gonna say it was doomed to die no matter what water it went in due to shipping stress anyway and that your efforts are not in vain.

 

I have struggled with adding rummynose tetras also. Mine would do that same that yours are doing, one would stop schooling and just hide and then eventually pass. My LFS just chalked it up to bad batch and kept replacing the ones that I lost but out the original 10, I have only managed to keep 5 alive at once, despite regularly trying to up the school. The 5 survivors are all thriving now but it was a very discouraging process. I also tried drip acclimating longer but it seems that stresses them out more. Hope you have better luck with yours!

 

Ok, my tank officially scares the you know what out of me. I figured since I added 13 fish (yes you read right...13. 5 Rummies and 8 cardinals) that my peramaters would be off. I did add my Aquavitro Seed last night and prime because I knew adding that many fish in one shot, I was going to cause a cycle. So this morning after finding one rummy dead, I was sure I wad going to have at least .5 if not more in ammonia, and at least 5.0 if not more in nitrate. So I pulled out all my buckets and started to aerate them so I can do at least a 50% water change if I needed to. Then out comes the test. My kh is super high. Its at 10dKH, but I have stuff in there for the shrimp, so not unexpected. Gh is about normal at 9dGH. So out comes the regular test kit, and this is what scares me.........



The only blip in my peramaters is nitrate, and that is still almost 0 (remember I use Matrix, and normally have 0 nitrate).

So now, how much water should I change? My last water change was 4 days ago, and I normally do about 25% twice a week for the shrimp. TexasDomer CindiL Suggestions? Should I bring down my kh a bit? Tap is running about 2dKH so if I don't add in my buffer I can drop it a bit.

As for the fish. The Cardinals. 5 of them have inflamed gills, and 2 have pale gills. One looks normal. Rummies, most have inflamed gills. So most have ammonia poisoning, and that's the other reason why I want to do a water change. Lots and lots of clean water can help them and maybe keep most this time.

Let me know

Drag

 

How did they get ammonia poisoning? During the drip acclimation? That test looks like zilch on the ammo level unless I'm not seeing it right.

Good luck. Hopefully someone can help and you keep them alive somehow.

 

They shipped in Tuesday to the shop. I grabbed them Wednesday, and a 5 hour drip acclimation with a drop of Prime every hour to keep the ammonia down.......Could of come from anywhere. I'm guessing they had it, which for this shop isn't uncommon, and then the long drip acclimation, that didn't help them one bit.

Edit: it is 0 ammonia. That's why my tank scares me. You would think after adding 13 fish in one shot would cause an ammonia spike, but it didn't.

 

Hi, on vacation this week but just checked in. Honestly I wouldn't worry about the KH but with a water change just bring it to where you normally keep it.

Hope you don't lose anymore.

 

CINDI! So glad you checked in! Happy vacation lady!

Before you go, do you think I should hold off on my water change? I added about 2 gallons of water last night due to the acclimation, but was planning on about an 8 gallon change today. What do you think?

Enjoy your vacation!

I went a head and did my water change, which turned into a big mess. I hit my hornwart with the vacuum and it went POOF all over my tank. I had one big mess of needles to clean up. I only thought to vacuum around it, not aquascaping. Sheesh.

On a sad note, I'm now loosing fish #2. A cardinal. The fish is really anemic looking though, so not surprised. A second cardinal has not been doing to well either. So tomorrow I might have 2 dead come the morning.

Grrr, that cardinal died. The other cardinal that is not doing to well is hidding in the floating hornwart.

The other fish are looking better. There is still one cardinal that is really thin, bit it at a little today so here is hoping.

 

I'm waiting for the 4 day mark before I start calling this either way, but I'm optimistic for you.

 

had that happen to me too all my parameters are perfect 0 0 25 ph 6.8 temp 85 and remaining stable despite just finnishing my fishless cycle 2 weeks ago got my cards all 10 died in one weekend one after the other no signs of illness and nothing wrong with water sorry this is happening to you it stinks :/

 

Actually I know the reason, just hoping I was able to bypass it with a 5 hour acclimation. The rummy had very inflamed gills, so guessing ammonia poisoning got him. The Cardinal that just died was very thin. I'm assuming parasites or stopped eating from stress. Parasites is more likely. The cardinal that is hidding has good weight, but color never came back as well as the rest. It's gills are also inflamed. So I'm guessing stress and either osmotic shock or ammonia poisoning is what is doing it in. So I do know what's causing the deaths, was just hoping I managed to prevent osmotic shock this round.

 

Did you happen to test the water they came home in this time? I'm starting to wonder if the store had some nasty parameters.

 

Yeah I did. They use RO/DI water in their systems, so the tds are totally different between my tank that I use straight tap water, and theirs. Their peramaters and mine are in the first post to this thread.

 

Sorry didn't realize that was a current test.

The ammonia burn doesn't fit, and the methylene blue should have helped their breathing during the drips. I know we went over this, I'm just pretty shocked at the symptoms still.

 

Ammonia poisoning does not disappear. The gills only heal so much, but the gills will always have some damage. Like any wound, it does not heal a couple of days. So they get shipped across country....12 in a bag.....In only 3 to 4 cups of water. Plus they are not fed 24 to 48 hours before shipping to try to keep down the ammonia. So now here is these poor fish in 3 cups of water for a minimum of 24 hours. By the time they arrive at the shops, the ammonia is 1ppm + and their gills are burning. Now they are still stuck in that water while the shop acclimates them, so the ammonia is slowly falling until they are finally placed in the display tank for sale. They are normally far from healed by the time they are sold.

Then add on top of it, they go to a shop that uses very soft water, which for ammonia poisoning is a good thing because the gills don't have to work as hard for osmosis. Then sold to someone that has very hard water. Now not only is the gills burned and raw, now they go from very soft water to very hard, and have to work their gills even more, plus more stress. On top of it, there is so much minerals in the new water that their system goes into overload and has no idea what to do with it all.....And finally shuts down.

Makes sense now?

 

Yeah. Thanks. I tend to completely forget shipping somehow.

How's the tank going today?

 

The second cardinal died during the night, so down from 8 cardinals to 6. Another cardinal is in hidding, so might loose it was well. All the cardinals are still breathing rapidly, so they are still having problems with the osmotic pressure.

I'm tempted to put methylene blue in my tank, but I really don't want to kill my cycle and plants.

 

Would changing out 25 percent of the water to ro help the acclimation process? Or maybe a step up quarantine that is half tank half ro water and then after a week acclimating to the main tank?

 

I have no place to put a QT, otherwise I would. Second, husband won't let me buy water.

 

And I take it there's no filter for the drinking water either... I'm racking my brain trying to figure out a cheap solution here for you. You could probably rig up a home distiller with things you have lying around but that would only net you a little bit of water at a time in comparison to what you need.

Do you collect rainwater? Maybe accidentally leave a bucket out during the next rain and test it to see what it's like. Dropping the tds down would only be for the acclimation anyway so it wouldn't be a continuous ordeal.

 

There is many reasons why I really can't mess with my gh and tds. The biggest one is I have wacked kh. It can range anywhere between 0 and 2 degrees at any given time. So my tank is set up to combat my kh issue. With the aragonite sand and cuttlebone in my tank, to keep the kh up to prevent the pH fluctuations, it also raises the gh and tds. If I use something that has low to no gh and tds, and placed it in my tank, I drop my kh at the same time. I burn through a lot of kh between all the snails, limpets, and shrimp, so lowering that would put my tank at risk of a pH crash and loose everything.

There is no way to effectively lower gh and tds with out changing my kh.