Out of ideas - please help!

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Eoin

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Apr 19, 2004
Messages
40
Location
Canada
Hi. This is a rather desperate plea for help. I have had a 20 gal tank for several years now. Fish have come and gone, and I didn’t look after it the way I should have. Recently I decided to make a serious go of looking after my tank. I have had 6 cardinals that have been with me for most of those 2 years, through good, bad, and a move. However, they have always remained hidden among the plastic plants, only ever coming out to feed.

I spoke to many people at different pet shops, and did some research on-line to try and determine what I needed to do to get the cardinals to come out. I had given the cardinals plenty of hiding spaces in the hopes that they would feel secure enough to come out into the open. That didn’t work.

I then converted to live plants hoping that would make them feel more comfortable. Still they hid. I then moved out all other fish (some white-tip tetras) and put in a few more cardinals. That did nothing, and the new cardinals died about a week later. Then it was suggested to me that the cardinals needed to see other friendly fish out in the open in order to feel that it was safe to come out. I put in 3 columbian tetras, 3 black phantom tetras, and 2 pygmy gouramis. The cardinals began to venture out for a few days, but then resumed their hiding habits.

About a week after I added the last of the fish (the black phantoms), fish started dying. Within two days I had lost all the black phantoms, and 4 of my 6 cardinals. I put in some medicine to fight a bacterial infection, and thankfully lost no more fish.

Recently the male gourami has become aggressive towards the female, and is always chasing her around the tank. The cardinals are still hiding, and now the colubians are spending much of their time in seclusion as well. The Ph of my water is at 6.9, the water hardness is medium, and the temperature is about 80F.

I feel like I have tried everything, but to no avail. I just want to be able to have my fish swimming out and about like you see in any other tank. I’m about ready to give up. Please help!!!
 
Sounds like either your tank is rife with some sort of nasty disease or your LFS is. Have you tried getting your new fish from another place?

If you're adding several more fish at once, your biological filter may not be able to deal with them, and your ammonia may be increasing each time you put in new fish.

Regardless, we advise that any new fish be quarantined before they're put in your tank. This means getting a smaller tank (e.g. 5 or 10 gallons) and putting the new fish in there for 2 weeks before adding them to your main tank. I spent the better part of 3 months a year ago trying to get rid of diseases my tank got because I failed to quarantine some new fish.

Also, how do you acclimate new fish to the tank? Do you place the bag at the top of the aquarium to allow water temp to equilibrate in and out of the bag, and then pour water in gradually over 1-2 hours? This is the best method to equilibrate the water parameters such as pH (though there is a slightly more complicated "drip method" which is a little more gradual).

Also, I'd recommend you *not* add any new fish for a while to allow your tank to cool down.

Also, your cardinals may be sensitive to the amount of light in the tank. If you tried adding something between the light and the glass, such as a filter (light filter) or even just some pieces of paper, you might get the cardinals to come out more often.
 
I had never had a problem with my LFS in the past. The disease seem to have been cleared up, as no more fish have died, and the female gourami who was looking rather ill, seems much better (strange colouration is gone). I kept an eye on the ammonia levels when I added the new fish, and didn’t notice it rise above 0 (I added about 3 fish at a time).

When adding new fish I usually leave them in their bag, floating the tank for an hour or so. Then I cut a hole in the bag and leave it for another 20 minutes. Then I put the fish in.

I have created canopies of plants to try and shade the lower areas as I had read about cardinals liking lower light levels. Yet the people at my LFS have a tank with cardinals, brighter lights than mine, and the cardinals are swimming out and about. You can imagine my confusion.

I don’t know if my overly aggressive gourami is making matters worse. The male and female are supposed to swim together I was told. Instead they just fight all the time.
 
I don’t know if my overly aggressive gourami is making matters worse. The male and female are supposed to swim together I was told. Instead they just fight all the time.
This could be the big problem right now. Do you have a QT tank? Try separating the bully and see what happens to the rest of the fish.
 
I tried keeping cardinals in a tank with a dwarf gourami and I never saw a single cardinal come out of hiding for weeks, except briefly to eat. I then moved the cardinals into a different tank and even though that one had adult angels in it, the cardinals swam around and schooled, playing in the spray bar outflow! That gourami seemed to be the cause of the whole problem for me.

I believe your other issues with fish deaths are completely separate and related to possible illness carried by the additions, and quarrantine of new fish will go a long way to prevent that in the future. Another thing, like you suspect, is that tension between the male and female gourami is not helping, and I think it is hard to keep a pair of these fish without fighting, from what I have read. Try removing the female and see what happens.
 
That would explain why many of the fish went into hiding shortly after the male gourami started getting aggressive. I guess I will need to remove the gouramis. Perhaps I could trade them with some fish I have in my 10 gal tank. I don’t have a qt tank, and can’t afford to go out and buy more equipment (my wife is already pretty annoyed with the amount I have spent so far). It’s a shame too, the male is such a pretty fish.

It’s funny, after all this, all I ever wanted was a tank of cardinals, and nothing more.
 
Maybe your LFS would be interested in a trade for the gouramis? I have another male gourami (I really like them, but have had a lot of trouble with aggression) who resides in a 15-gal with only 3 paleatus cory cats on the bottom. He killed the head/tail light tetras I put in there, as well as some white clouds, so I gave up and let him be virtually on his own.
 
Well, the trade worked. I switched the gouramis with some tetras, cleaned up the tank a bit, and created some rock hiding places. This morning all the little fish, including the cardinals were out of their hiding places. They still seem quite tentative, and every time I or my wife went near the tank, they hid. But at least they are starting to venture out. I’m going to replace the cardinals I lost to disease a couple of weeks ago, and see how things go.

Cheers
 
I am a labyrinth fish freak..but my BKG/tetra tank has NONE. One well behaved resue betta is the exception. My dwarfs are in a divided tank.
I want to see my shy fish. Though gourami generally can be shy, dwarfs are always a powder keg.
And they need to kept honestly as one male or 5 fish (females need to be in pairs and you add one more male one more female to get color) .
It is too small a tank for peaceful gourami. Young cories should have drawn your guys out unless they were added WITH the gourami. And the gourami prolly killed the cories. Corys breach for air so often register on a mean labyrinth's radar as another labyrinth. :( poor lil guys.

Glad you were able to trade the boogers back for more suitable mates.
Female gourami in lfs tanks often look thin and pale because of constant stress and harrassment from larger females and males.

The gourami surviving the die off points to water quality as the culprit. Ad slow next time and ALWAY QT!
GOOD LuCK!! :D
 
Christmasfish to the rescue! Thanks for explaining that - it certainly seemed to be the case for me, and even though my DG is now in a 55, he goes nose to nose with the adult angel on a daily basis. I am glad things worked out, Eoin, and seeing those cardinals is hopefully worth the trade!
 
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