Realistic death rate with new fish???

[woofwoofgrrl]

Another one of my panda cories died yesterday. That brings my new-fish death toll to 6 out of 17 fish. 1 out of 3 seems like a high death rate to me! Is this an indicator that I should find a new source for my fish or am I being silly expecting all the fish to actually survive the acclimation process?


I fishless cycled, my water parameters are fine except my water is hard and my PH is 8.2. I check them regularly using the API liquid test kit. I do weekly water changes. I acclimated the fish using a drip line into the bag for over 4 hours.

Thoughts? What am I doing wrong?

 

[ejaramillo01]

If your tank is fully cycled (good water parameters) yes, it is a high number of deaths. IMO could be:

1.- your lfs is not too good, try a different one.

2.- The pH of the water at the lfs is way different than your 8.2, and even with the proper drip method, the change in the ph is affecting the fish.

 

[HUKIT]

I can't remember the last time I lost a newly purchased fish, and I mail order the majority of them so there's a great deal more stress on that trip than a short drive from the LFS. I personally don't see the need to spend that mug time acclimating them unless they're saltwater invertabrates or delicate fish. I would say either it's bad stock or a water quality problem. My vote is find a new store if your water quality is good.

 

[Fishguy2727]

Certain batches of fish can be bad from the best LFSs. Take them back and let them know. They may know that batch of panda cories (which are not the hardiest to begin with) was bad and be happy to make it right.

There are certain fish that I would be surprised if you didn't have a couple die and panda cories are on that list.

 

[Shadowraven]

That is a rather high percentage, so you may have gotten a bad batch. Sometimes they can also be stressed on the way home and that can affect them as well.

Were these all corys that died or were there other fish? If there were, what were they?

I am a little concerned with alkalinity of the water your Corydoras are in. They are a soft water fish that come blackwater conditions and prefer a much lower pH than is in your tank. A high pH, combined with the stress of a new tank, could kill off your fish. If you want to keep panda corys, you will need to get that pH lowered.

 

[Mr. Limpet]

Another one of my panda cories died yesterday. That brings my new-fish death toll to 6 out of 17 fish. 1 out of 3 seems like a high death rate to me! Is this an indicator that I should find a new source for my fish or am I being silly expecting all the fish to actually survive the acclimation process?

I fishless cycled, my water parameters are fine except my water is hard and my PH is 8.2. I check them regularly using the API liquid test kit. I do weekly water changes. I acclimated the fish using a drip line into the bag for over 4 hours.

Thoughts? What am I doing wrong?

+1 for the drip acclimation and it's something that should be considered IMHO, only I was told 1g per hour is a good rate.

8.2 pH is high in general unless the fish prefer it and from one post it sounds like that may be the culprit. Do you know what the pH is coming from your tap? One thing I'm considering is mixing RO water with tap to soften my buffers allowing me to lower my pH (7.8 at best).

 

[Rokuzachi]

Something I discovered with my water is that straight out of the tap, its PH is around 10. After a few hours of aeration, it goes down to its usual 7.6. Some areas gas water to buffer it as I understand things (to keep pipe corrosion down), so in my case you have to let that gas get out of the water or cause a big PH spike in the tank.

In my experience, tank-bred fish can adjust to most reasonable PHs with some exceptions, of course. Wild fish will probably pose more of a problem. (Don't know if this applies to you but I thought I'd mention it)

 

[warthog76za]

Another one of my panda cories died yesterday. That brings my new-fish death toll to 6 out of 17 fish. 1 out of 3 seems like a high death rate to me! Is this an indicator that I should find a new source for my fish or am I being silly expecting all the fish to actually survive the acclimation process?

I agree with ejaramillo, best try a different lfs, I was getting new additions to add with the fish I already had in the tank and the new ones (1 out of 4) seemed to die every week. Have now tried other places and have had no problems.

 

[Fishguy2727]

I don't like the drip by drop acclimation method. The water cools in the bucket and in the tubing, so you acclimate the fish to match the parameters but the temp matches room temp. I use an air tube on full flow into a bucket. This goes faster, but it is so little at a time that they adjust very well to both the parameters and the temp.

Without more info I wouldn't say to find a new shop. As stated they may be aware of the issue (or it may be a new source for them). At least call them about it and see what they have to say (try to get in touch with a manager, many employees will have no clue).

 

[woofwoofgrrl]

2 of the fish that died were panda corys, 1 was a white fin tetra and 3 were zebra danios. I took one of the corys back to the fish store since I was within the 30 day period. The woman I talked to gave me a refund but with attitude. She was determined to find something wrong with my water. I don't mind them testing my water but she could have been nicer about it. I also asked the girl who is regularly back in the fish area if they had had many complaints about their Danios, since I lost 3, and she said no. But with the inquisition one has to go through to get a refund, I'm thinking people don't give them feedback for the inexpensive fish.

I bought a GH/KH test today and my tap water is worse than I thought! My GH is 17 and my KH is 11. I bought some RO water from my grocery store and it looks better - the GH is 8 and the KH is 5. With those values, do you see any harm in using that straight up without mixing in any tap? The PH of the RO settles out to 7.6. My tap water comes out of the tap 7.6 ish and settles at 8.2.

Thanks everyone!

 

[Mr. Limpet]

I don't like the drip by drop acclimation method. The water cools in the bucket and in the tubing, so you acclimate the fish to match the parameters but the temp matches room temp. I use an air tube on full flow into a bucket. This goes faster, but it is so little at a time that they adjust very well to both the parameters and the temp.

Without more info I wouldn't say to find a new shop. As stated they may be aware of the issue (or it may be a new source for them). At least call them about it and see what they have to say (try to get in touch with a manager, many employees will have no clue).

I didn't even know the process existed, muchless use it till Jsoong pointed me towards it. I would agree with you on temp, but the differences in water parameters is the bigger issue and acclimation is a more humane way to introduce fish to any new enviroment IMHO. Not to mention long term survival.

As for the shop, it really matters on "what" fish you're getting IMO. For years my LFS has been 100% on buying fish and their long term survival, that is until I got a shoal of Cardinal Tetras. Since getting them, 1 died in the 15 mins from LFS to home in the bag. Of the survivors 6 going into my tank, 1 died by being trapped (bad mfg design) and 3 have simply expired for no reason at random times over the pass week. What this tells me is that even the best shops can have bad fish.

 

[Shadowraven]

I didn't even know the process existed, muchless use it till Jsoong pointed me towards it. I would agree with you on temp, but the differences in water parameters is the bigger issue and acclimation is a more humane way to introduce fish to any new enviroment IMHO. Not to mention long term survival.

I agree with most of what you are saying here, because a sudden change in the water chemistry can shock new fish and make them more susceptible to disease. But thermal shock is not something to be ignored. So long as the temperature difference is within 2-3F of each other there shouldn't be a problem (except for bettas who can be much more sensitive).

I always prefer that the water my new fish are going into to be a little warmer then what they in anyway. I found that they can handle that difference better than the other way around. Drip acclimation is definitely the best way to go.

As far as the fish she listed as dying, the tetra is a softer water fish, but the Danios shouldn't have had the same problem at that pH. They like hard water. But the water you have coming out of the tap is really bad. That could kill fish. I like the RO water numbers much better. You are referring to reverse-osmosis water, right?

 

[woofwoofgrrl]

Yes, by RO I mean reverse osmosis. My grocery store has a refill machine for $.40 a gallon. So it's an affordable, and body building, option for me.

Amazingly, the tetras have the lowest death rate so far - out of 7 only one has died.

 

[ejaramillo01]

Yes, by RO I mean reverse osmosis. My grocery store has a refill machine for $.40 a gallon. So it's an affordable, and body building, option for me.

Amazingly, the tetras have the lowest death rate so far - out of 7 only one has died.

You can use, in my opinion, some RO water mixed with your tap water, but I don't think that it's necessary. Two suggestion to be aware:

1.- I tried the use of RO water in my tank (many moons ago), and I did not mixed with tap water, the result was that I killed all my fish, the lack of natural salts and minerals in the RO water caused a Osmotic shock in the fish. Fish need these natural salts and minerals to properly live.
2.- Removing the minerals from the water, created another problem, I lost the buffer capability of the tank. In other words the pH started to fluctuate from 7.2 to 6.0. As you know, fish don't handle well pH changes.

In summary, I don't recommend the use of RO, unless your water is terrible. I read that some people use it, but they add salts and minerals to compensate. But I don't know the details.

 

[woofwoofgrrl]

The RO water has a carbonate hardness of 5, general hardness of 6, and settles out to a PH of about 7.6 - doesn't that mean that there are still natural salts and minerals in this source of RO water? Or does the RO filtering cause an imbalance in the types of salts?

 

[Fishguy2727]

What is the TDS? It obviously isn't high quality RO water.

 

[Shadowraven]

Those are some good points you made there ejaramillo01. I didn't think of those aspects of the water, just the numbers she gave us.

As far as your tetra situation is concerned, that isn't too unusual. Even though they prefer softer, more acidic water, most of them can tolerate a wider range. Alhtough if would go too high, they would be the first to shows problems from it. Only a few tetras, like neons, are more touchy about the gH/pH of the water.

 

[woofwoofgrrl]

How would I find out the TDS of the RO water? Is there a test I can do? The brochure next to the machine talks about the filtering process but doesn't have chemical details.

 

[Fishguy2727]

You need a TDS meter. I got mine for $10 shipped on eBay. If you are dealing with RO water you should have one.

 

[woofwoofgrrl]

You need a TDS meter. I got mine for $10 shipped on eBay. If you are dealing with RO water you should have one.

Please explain.... What does that tell me that GH and KH don't?