Dying Rosy Reds from petsmart

[fish.fish.fish]

Hi everyone, so this is my first post on here so sorry if it's weird. So recently I bought around 30 rosy red minnows from petsmart in thought if stockpiling them to use as feeders over the next little while. When I got them they were all still alive of course, but even when I got home to put them into their own aquarium, one was dead in the bag. I didn't think much of it, but the next day a few more were dead, and same the next day. I had looked up the right temperature and ph levels for rosy reds in advance, so the only thing different then what I had read online was the amount I had in the aquarium, but it was nowhere near as crowded as the pet store.

I also realized that a couple where swimming weird and their tails/ back portion of their bodies was a lot paler than the rest. I touched one that was swimming on top and it didn't seem to notice, so maybe it was paralyzed? Anyways, the couple that had the white tail died a few hours later.

And then yesterday I had one floating at the top so I thought it was dead, but when I went to poke it is tried to swim away. I read somewhere that it might be gallbladder issues (?)

So basically I'm confused at why they are dying so much, and also are they still safe to use as food after they have passed? They were intended to be fed to tilapia.

 

[Autumnsky]

Any fish which passed from ill /unknown circumstances I would feed to another fish in case of disease. It might be different is it was a cat eating it- not that I am recommending that either. But a fish which is ill could get the Tilapia ill and not a good idea.

Most safely, the way to use feeder fish would be to raise your own. Or use chopped whole fish. Or maybe fish/trout chow, sometimes available from the ranch feed store or regional or county coop.

These feeder fish are kept in extremely stressful conditions. Consequently often fall ill.

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As for these fish are they in a cycled tank or a new tank? Did you add the store tank water into the tank you were keeping them in?

As for the dead one it might have already been slow and on the verge of death being in the store's tank and easily caught up in the net.

If you get new feeder fish in the future, I would acclimate them in a container you can bleach after use, add water a little at a time until the quantity is at least 2 times more than what you started with.

Then dump out the water using a net to catch and fast swimming fish until you have just a few cups of water and fish left. Swoop the fish out and into the tank.

They likely came from a 78F tank and acclimation can help in the future reduce stress.

Some people like to treat the fish in a medicated bath before placing them into a storing/temporary tank. You might check into that more as well.

The illness of your feeder Rosies could be Columnaris. Did you see any white grey patches around the top fin?

Does the tank have a filter?

Air bubbler?