Sick fish???

[jenw]

I bought 10 lemon tetras about a month ago. (Along with 10 glowlights, 10 black neons, and 10 ghost shrimp, and 3 corys). All came from the same store at same time. My water parameters are fine, I do about a 15 gal water change to vaccum gravel every week. 4 of my lemon tetras have died so far. They isolate themselves and start kind of tipping to the side. 2 of them have started flipping out by flipping around in the water. This happens about 1 fish per week. Also, 2 of my glowlights have died. I just found them dead. Not at the same time. I am thinking neon tetra disease but I don't really know. Do fish normally do this. I have taken the lemons out as soon as I noticed these symptoms.

 

[micah2012]

Was the tank cycled? When I bought my first tank I just set it up and threw in a bunch of fish, after a couple weeks they all started dying. Problem was that I never cycled it and crazy overstocked it, beneficial bacteria never had a fighting chance with all these guys.

 

[Panther28]

I think you over stocked the tank. It is a case of New Tank syndrome. (Nitrite's are the problem) Or if the tank in cycled then it might be something else that must have added which is killing the fish.

 

[noncentric]

Hi jenw, the first thing to do is test your water parameters (ammonia, nitrites, nitrates) - preferably using a liquid test-tube kit, not dip strip test kit. As others already mentioned, cycling and bacterial populations are the likely cause of your fish's deaths.

- If you tank wasn't cycled, then it is cycling now and ammonia/nitrite spikes are killing the fish.
- If your tank was cycled before adding the fish, then adding that many at once could have caused a rise in ammonia that the bacteria were not able to handle - new fish should be added gradually, so that the beneficial bacteria population can expand to accomodate the increased bioload (ammonia production).

I'm surprised the ghost shrimp haven't keeled over yet, as they are also very sensitive to water quality issues.

Good luck!

 

[jenw]

Yes, my tank was cycled before adding any fish. I used a existing tanks filters and my water parameters have NEVER changed. I test my water with test tube test ammonia=0nitrite=0 nitrate less than 5 ph 7 kh9 i use diy co2 have 1.5 watts per gallon I use 3 40 watt 11000 lumen lights. I have live plants, ludwigia amazon swords cabomba water sprite. No visible signs of disease I have been feeding with frozen food (freshwater multipack). I have switched to good flake using frozen every 3rd day to see if maybe it was just too much food.

can't think of anything esle to tell

 

[Etheostoma]

I know the behavior. I've seen it in all manner of tetras.

Check your dark cycle dissolved oxygen to see if that's a stressor.
Water looks to be very soft, maybe too soft?
What is your temp maintained at?

Tetra's of all stripes are annoyingly notorious for just up-an-dying if their water "tastes" funny. At least in my experience.

Your fish are exhibiting stress behavior, so, you're right that it's probably not a pathogen. All I can do is wish you luck!

 

[noncentric]

Hhmmm. How long does it take between when they show signs and when they die? Does there seem to be any difference between night and day?

It sounds like you have 27ppm of CO2 (kh=9, pH=7), so that shouldn't be the problem. I wonder if the O2 levels are dropping overnight. Have you tested these parameters in the morning? However, if it was an O2 issue, then you'd probably be seeing gasping at the surface from all fish.

Not sure what else it could be, other than just being tetras (ie, easily dead).

Hhmmm.