Red Spine?

[Trigger]

First off hello all!!!
My name is Noel from the cold metro of Winnipeg Canada. Just have 1 question for you all.
I bought my 1st aquarium last week, 33gal fw tank. And was stunned at what i saw this morning. Last night i did a 25% water change as advised from the pet store. Everything went well, fish were not overly agitaed or anything.
But when i woke up this morning i found my fish all schooled up chasing each other around. I tryed to feed them with no success, they were more interested in swimming around then eating!
This itself is no real big deal for me i wouldnt want to eat while im having fun.... But.... i noticed this morning that the spine of all these lil fishies had turned from a color from almost brown---to red
So i was just wondering if any of you know what this means? Part of the cycling process maybe?

 

[dimdem]

I'm a complete newby myself, and won't possibly be able to answer your question, but I bet the first thing that someone else will want to know is what kind of fish you have.

 

[Trigger]

OPPPPs sry
Black skirt Tetra

 

[rubysoho]

Welcome to AA!

Can you tell us a little more about your tank? We need to know the type of fish you have, how many, and if your have a water test kit, we'll need to know the ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite levels. If you don't have these test kits, I suggest you get your water tested at your LFS (they should test it for free) and then purchase the drip test kits (not the strips that you just dip in water because those aren't reliable) From here we can get an idea of what might be going on in your tank. Hope we can help!

 

[Trigger]

Thanx for the quick reply RubySoho.
I dont have any other fish in the tank rt now. Just the 6 tetras. Going to go out and get a water test kit rt now

 

[rubysoho]

good to hear you are getting the water kits, those will be crucial since you are cycling with fish. When you get back, check your water perameters. All of them *should* be almost non-detectable, but I doubt this will be the case since you are in the process of cycling your tank. Hopefully someone has the link to the informative discussion on this process and it will help you understand what is going on in your tank. Now, Black Skirt Tetras (if this is indeed what your LFS sold you) are not supposed to have a red spine, so I believe this could potentially be a very bad sign. Hopefully someone with more information will come by and help you out.

 

[Menagerie]

[center:8089d42a67] Welcome to AA, Trigger!! [/center:8089d42a67]
Definitely need to know the water parameters (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, temp) and if you added the dechlor.
If you could post a pic, we definitely will be able to tell if there is a problem with the fish.

 

[Toirtis]

Welcome to AA!

 

[SerLunchbox]

Never saw this condition before myself ... but i anticipate that someone will know what is going on. Also, welcome to AA

 

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

Greetings to Winterpeg,

There is something that comes to mind, but I'll wait until we see the results of your tests.

For the time being, what is the temp of your tank? and have you added any aquarium salt in the past?

Perhaps having the tank about 77-78F (If it's higher or lower, change it no more the 2F per day) and adding salt as per recommendation would be a good start (recommendation is on the box) do NOT use table salt or other iodized salt. and split the increase into 3 dozes for the day, so treat your tank as if it was 10 Gal 3 times rather then dumping it all in in a shot.

Welcome to AA.

Edit: is it just around the Dorsal fin, or is it the entire spine?