Glowlight Tetras with damaged fins.Is this fin-rot or fin nipping from the other fish

[ErrorcodeJoe14]

I currently have a 30 Litre BiOrb tank with 5 pearl Danios, 6 Glowlight Tetras and 3 panda corys.

However the Glowlight Tetras have damaged fins and tails. They look a bit like this.

Wondering if anyone could help me out?

Many thanks Fishy Folks

[Aiken Drum]

Thats an awful lot of fish for such a small tank. I can see all sorts of water condition issues, territorial issues, and lack of space for those fish.

What are your water parameters?

[ErrorcodeJoe14]

Oh and buy the way there all baby fish (Juveniles).

What do you mean by water parameters (I’m new to this forum) and unsure what that means ?

[Aiken Drum]

Originally Posted by ErrorcodeJoe14

Oh and buy the way there all baby fish (Juveniles).

What do you mean by water parameters (I’m new to this forum) and unsure what that means ?

Generally pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, temperature.

Even as juveniles 14 fish is a lot of bioload for a 30 litre tank and they wont have enough space to live stressfree. As they grow i can see that becoming unmanageable.

[ErrorcodeJoe14]

Oh thanks, but what should I do about the tetras

[ErrorcodeJoe14]

I do test strips and it always comes back with high PH

[ErrorcodeJoe14]

PH 6, temperature 25 degrees, oxygen levels are stable, nitrate low and nitrite low. Chlorine 0, ammonia?

[Aiken Drum]

Originally Posted by ErrorcodeJoe14

Oh thanks, but what should I do about the tetras

Ammonia is your most likely parameter to be out. You need to be able to test for that.

What exactly are your nitrite and nitrate? Nitrite should be 0.

Your water parameters need to be got under control, thats the most likely cause of whats going on. And that will be difficult in an uncycled tank that is too small for the fish you have. Start with water changes. 50% straight away and 25% daily until you are able to know what your parameters are and have them under control.

Longer term you need to suitably accommodate your fish in a cycled tank. Either a bigger tank or reduce numbers down to 3 or 4 fish. Problem is your fish are schooling fish and need numbers, so they arent suited to be in a 30 litre tank in the numbers they need. Your fish are probably stressed, living in waste, all contributing to their ill health.

Clean water is your friend and not overstocking.

[ErrorcodeJoe14]

Okay, thank you.

I was going to buy 2 nerite snails, for this 30L tank. But now you say it’s overtocked I don’t know wether I should buy them. I thought it would help with algae problem in the tank. It’s not to bad, just occasional.

But I do need some algae eaters or something like snails to help, because I’ve tried treatments and I still have the problem.

Oh and by the way my nitrate is 2 and nitrite is 0

[Aiken Drum]

You need to either rehome some fish or get a bigger tank. Adding a couple of snails probably wont make things much worse, but your tank wont settle down and things wont improve while you have all those fish in such a small tank.

Anything to report on ammonia?

Are you doing those daily water changes i recommended?

[Aiken Drum]

And another thing to add.

Stop with the treatments.

Having a properly set up and stocked tank, getting it cycled and maintaining clean water will be of way more benefit than adding treatments which invariably are sticking plasters to cover up bigger things wrong with your tank.

[BigRedsReefs10]

Originally Posted by ErrorcodeJoe14

Oh and by the way my nitrate is 2 and nitrite is 0

From reading trough your thread this isn’t possible. First off there is nothing that measures nitrate in a fw system down to 1ppm increments. What are you using to do water tests? To be blatantly honest you need to either get a bigger tank or rehome 2of the 3 species, these bio orb tanks aren’t really practical, fish need space to establish territory and with something that has practically no foot print makes this impossible. If it were me I’d limit that tank to something like a single betta assuming the flow isn’t to strong. If you want fish like the ones you currently have your best bet is to grab something from the dollar per gallon sale at petco (20 gallon long make an awesome starter tank)