Cardinal tetra died :-(

[Copachick]

Well it was totally out of the blue this morning, I saw that my cardinal tetra has passed this morning. He was just fine(from what I could see last night) eating and doing well. Ill do my water testing when i get home this evening, but I had just did them a few days ago and it was fine. The Ph is always a little low... but there were no nitrites, no ammonia, and I want to say the nitrates were 5.
If all is well I planned on getting a couple more anyways this weekend

 

[iadubber]

I've never had good luck with cardinals. I had 5 of 9 on my last cardinal tetra purchase die. They just seem very sensitive.

 

[jcolon]

Sorry to hear about your Cardinal ... My son has 3 in his tank and I love their red / blue color contrast through their entire body length.

Hopefully it is not an illness that will spread to the other fish.

 

[Copachick]

Ive always heard that about them. We've had them for quite some time too.. Its just weird that out of the blue it died this morning. We only had 2 in my 36 gallon..I know they do better in groups. So if all is well, and I can tell if there is no illness I want to get a few more. I dont want one cardinal to be lonely....

 

[Copachick]

I hope there is no illness that can be spread... We did just get through a battle of Ich, that 5 out of my 7 Platys ended up dieing from, but thats been long over. blah... I hate when stuff happenes then Im so paranoid

 

[jcolon]

It is sad to see fish fine one day, gone the next with no indications why. I've come to just accept it as it's time came. Had one new Rummynose start to swim weird and die within a few hours of going into my son's tank ... this after 3 hours of acclimation.

Cardinals, like Rummynoses are so sensitive and very easily stressed. I just got the third Cardinal (along with the 3 rummies) a few days ago and last night I noticed one of it's eyes seems a bit bulged and clouded over. I have a strong feeling it injured it's eye with some of the slate rocks / DW the first day while frantically swimming around due to stress. The other eye is fine but I'll be monitoring this for a few days.

 

[Copachick]

Yeah I think its the first time ive ever had a fish just die out of nowhere like that. We use to have a Bala shark in with my cardinals and Platys but he just went into a new 75 gallon the other day so I figured they would be LESS stressed. I dunno. Weird. maybe it was just her time? she was alot bigger than the other one. Who knows. But it made me sad. They were like partners in crime. we called them Bevis and Butthead lol.

 

[Koikid88]

I've heard many conflicting stories about neons and cardinals.

From my experience, I was discouraged after my first batch of cards that I bought from Petsmart (Before I banned them from my shopping list). 6/8 full grown ones died, replaced the 6 at no charge, 5 of those died.
2 weeks later 1 randomly died.

But then I saw 2 tanks full of baby cardinals elsewhere, about a quarter inch long.
Bought a dozen... They are now fully grown and their appetites just keep growing. Added Neons from the same place, all survived. I truly believe these mysterious deaths come from transport and care prior to you buying them. So if you don't introduce them absolutely perfect, chances are they're gone (If poor care at LFS), even then, they could just.. die.. They are sensitive to water conditions for sure