Dead Tetra - What should I be looking for?

[woofwoofgrrl]

One of my new white fin tetras just died. I've had them for a week in my cycled 30 long. First obvious sign of distress was this AM when it started swimming vertically, with labored breathing. It's gills looked a tad swollen/splayed, but not any different in color. It stayed mid-level in the water, it did not swim to the top of the tank. 6 hours later it's dead. It's fins looked whole, not ragged, it was not bloated, it's scales were normal. Perhaps there was one little fleck of what *could* have been an ich on it's tail, but there are no other signs of ich as far as I can see. Other fish are acting normal. When I saw the little ich-ish thing I upped the temp from 78 to 80, and added the first of 3 planned batches of salt (each one about 1/3 cup).

Should I continue with the ich treatment just to be safe? Are there any other things I should be looking for/at? I prefer to know they 'why' when I lose a fish so I can learn and prevent.

The tank -
fishless cycled 30 long,
nitrates 0 (just did a partial water change yesterday, it was 10-20 before that).
nitrites 0
ammonia 0
PH 8.2
In the tank I now have
6 zebra/leopard danios and
5 white fin tetras
(all purchased at same time)
and a few java ferns.
AquaClear 200 filter,
12 inch bubbler
Marineland StealthPro 200 heater

Thanks!

 

[meegosh]

How long has the tank been set up? What are you using to test your water parameters? A good liquid kit or test strips?

Did you notice any flashing amongst the other fish or any other ich cysts?

 

[Tim Wheatley]

nitrates and nitrites at zero means it probably isn't cycled. I would think there was a spike sometime not caught before a water change due to it being still cycling.

Your heater has been recalled. Return it whenever you have time.

 

[meegosh]

Tim, you beat me to the punch - I was going to wait and see what kind of test kit she is using and then get into the whole cycle discussion.

Now that we have brought it up... in an established aquarium you should be reading some level of nitrates. Even most city's water supplies have some readable level of nitrates straight from the tap. In my area it seems to be around 5-10ppm.

 

[woofwoofgrrl]

I'm using the API liquid test kit. I've been definitely getting nitrates, it was 20 yesterday before a PWC. My cycle took 5 weeks with some media from my other tank. Towards the end of the cycle it was processing the ammonia every 12 hours. My nitrates were through the roof at that point even with several 75% water changes to keep the cycle from stalling.

Before putting the fish in, I did an 80% PWC to get the nitrates down. And I've been testing daily since I put fish in, in case there was a pocket of high nitrate water left over in the gravel. I have been doing a PWC whenever the nitrates got above 10. I just did a test for nitrates after shaking the bottles really good and it's at about 10ppm. So perhaps this morning when I got 0 I hadn't shaken the bottle well enough.

 

[woofwoofgrrl]

Okay, so I'm scanning my tank really closely for other ich cysts and I'm not seeing any, however - this might be a clue - my danios are the long fin kind and I'm noticing some tail length missing on some of them....

 

[McLumpy]

I'm using the API liquid test kit. I've been definitely getting nitrates, it was 20 yesterday before a PWC. My cycle took 5 weeks with some media from my other tank. Towards the end of the cycle it was processing the ammonia every 12 hours. My nitrates were through the roof at that point even with several 75% water changes to keep the cycle from stalling.

Before putting the fish in, I did an 80% PWC to get the nitrates down. And I've been testing daily since I put fish in, in case there was a pocket of high nitrate water left over in the gravel. I have been doing a PWC whenever the nitrates got above 10. I just did a test for nitrates after shaking the bottles really good and it's at about 10ppm. So perhaps this morning when I got 0 I hadn't shaken the bottle well enough.

Sorry to hear about your Neon. Are you only shaking Bottle #2, (for 30 seconds)? Then shaking the tube for 1 minute?

I had a Nitrate spike up to 160ppm recently and someone suggested hitting Bottle #2 on the counter. I took their advice and give it a good 1-2 "bumps" after shaking it for 30 seconds. My Nitrates are finally down to 40ppm and I've increased my weekly pwc from 25% to 50% to help keep them down. But since I'm not at 20ppm yet, I'm doing an extra pwc whenever I get a chance.

I'm sure your Nitrates are that low due to the large amounts of pwc's you have been doing. If you decrease the % your Nitrates should level out and you can balance them at 20ppm.

The tail issue could be due to the fish being stressed and they're nipping. Of course I don't know much about Danios, but my Dwarf Gourami got nipped quite a bit during my high nitrate issue. Gotta love Mollies! lol

Besides the tail issue w/ your Danio, do you notice any of the fish flashing against objects?