Is this cardinal sick?

[jiffy]

I noticed that one of my cardinal tetras is not nearly as red as the others are.

I tested for ammonia and nitrites today and everything is 0ppm.

At feeding time (I just fed them and watched him), he does eat, but seems to be shy when another fish swims close and therefore didn't eat much that I saw.

Here is a pic I took tonight. I put one fish that looks normal and the one that may be sick beaneath it. I will watch him more tonight, but he seems to still be schooling with the other cardinals still.

Edit---
BTW, anyone know why it posts a hyperlink to the pic instead of linking and posting the pic? And yes I am sure I didn't hyperlink it.

 

[jiffy]

bad news bad news very bad news.

I did a 15% waterchange yesterday. Tonight when I got home, I found a dead cardinal.

I don't know if it was the one in the pic or not. But there is one that looks like the one in the pic still in the tank.

He is hiding in the back, away from the school.

I tested ammonia and nitrites, they are both 0 ppm.

HELP!!!

 

[Lotus]

Sorry to hear about your cardinal If there were no other signs than paleness, it's hard to say for sure what it was. Sometimes fish just get sick and die. Did you have him/her long? Good that your tests came out good. Has anything in the tank changed recently? Any other signs of sickness? Has your pH changed for any reason?

 

[jiffy]

Lotus - thanks.

I last week Wednesday I bought 6 cardinals. As soon as I put them into the tank, I noticed one was injured. He died that night.

Then I noticed that one of the remaining 5 did not look as red as the others (my original post)

Tonight, one was dead and another still looks like the old one did. I don't know if another one mysteriously died, or if the one that was pale died and another is now pale.

Nothing that I can tell has changed in the tank. I can do a pH test to make sure that is the same.

I probably stressed him out more, but I got him in a net and held it to the glass so I could take pictures of him tonight. While doing this I noticed a single small white/clear thing on his dorsal fin. It wouldn't show up in the pic and was hard to see even looking at him.

Here are the pics

EDIT
I was planning on a waterchange and gravel vac tomorrow, should I still proceed with this?

 

[Lotus]

Sure, a waterchange shouldn't hurt anything. It sounds like the fish may have gotten stressed. Did you acclimate them with the drip method? It could well be ich on its tail, although it could be other diseases or damage.

 

[jiffy]

When I acclimated them I started by floating the bag for a little more than 5 minutes. Then I added some tank water and let it sit another 5 minutes. After that I added even more tank water and let 5 minutes pass. After that I added, no wait , after that I netted the fish and put them into the tank.

I do not believe it is ich, but I will keep an eye on it and other fish.

I actually just got back from the LFS and here is what happened.

First I went to one LFS near my house to get a nitrAte test kit, but they didn't have any. I told the lady my situation and she recomended some Rid-Ich+ dosing every other day for 6 days as prevention. I bought it and came home.

Then I called the LFS where I bought the fish to see if they had a problem with any cardinals they got in and I told them what happened. Theirs were all ok, and since mine died within a week they would replace them. Trouble was I didn't have the fish anymore. He told me to at least come in and let them test the water because it was probably something in my tank that was the problem.

Now, I thought their guarentee was only 3 days, but thats another story.

So, I take the water there everything tests out perfect. Then the guy that was helping me said he would give me a refund for the fish, didn't even have to bring it up!

To make a long story short, he told me that I was doing everything perfect and that it was probably just a couple sick ones, mabey still stressed from the move. He was also suprised that I was go good with my maintenance and knew enough about doing frequent waterchanges and blah blah.

He said not to use the rid-ich unless most or all of the tank is infected. You don't want to use meds unless it is a last option. He said to give the sick fish one more day or so and if he isn't looking better and everyone else is fine to euthanize him. This will hopefully prevent any other fish from catching anything he may have.

So to finish this, a short thank you to everyone on this site is in order. Thank you all for your help on this topic (lotus) and many others. Posting questions and reading other posts have proved to be a very useful thing. This site is a great resource to anyone new or old to fishkeeping.

Thank you.
Jiffy

 

[kikuchiyo]

Actually, what Lotus means by drip acclimation is different from floating.

You might want to pursue these links:

http://www.aquamaniacs.net/newfishselection.html

http://aquascienceresearch.com/APInfo/Acclimate.htm

http://www.bestfish.com/tips/050798.html

They say that floating is bad: causes more stress, builds up ammonia, etc. The drip method has you putting the fish and their water in a bucket, and slowly dripping tank water in for an hour or two. This is good for fragile fish and for ones from different water sources than yours.

hope that helps.

 

[Lotus]

If you get more cardinals from them, you might want to ask if they use city water or RO water. It's always useful to know anyway what they're keeping fish in. Cardinals are pretty sensitive to pH changes, so if the store uses RO water, it could have been a problem with acclimatizing them. It could be that there was just a bad batch of fish that had something go wrong in shipping.

 

[jiffy]

kikuchiyo - thanks for those links. Apparently what I was doing was the float and drip method.

Most of those sites say that drip method is bad to use. Well, unless you use Novaqua and amquel. They say if the water is close to the same perameters as yours you are best to just net the fish and put them right in.

Ok just a short update on this sick fish. I couldn't find him in the tank and spent about 5 minutes before I saw him on the bottom behind some plants and under the heater...dead. So I netted him and brought him out and I noticed he was breathing.

Don't get too excited. I put him in a bag with some tank water in it then and he perked up a little. So I put some more water in and 1 flake to see if he would eat it. He didn't. Every now and then he would perk up a little, but as soon as he would stop swimming he would go belly up.

After watching him for about 15 minutes, I decided to do the LFS suggestion and euthanize him. I wish I could have saved him, but he didn't look great in the bag. Most the time he just layed there tipped up or upside down.

Hopefully doing this will have saved my other fish...