My Cardinal Tetras and My Guppies....

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Darkfalcon

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Dec 26, 2015
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256
Location
Indonesia
I have a small tank. The size is 39 cm long, 25 cm wide and 29 cm tall (I fill water until near 27 cm tall). I used to put 1 medium sized butterfly koi, 2 regular/common goldfish, 4 comet goldfish, 4 lemon yellow lab, 2 golden black molly and 3 fishes that is called barbir in my place and they all can stay alive.

But then I got my main tank fixed and so I moved them to the main tank. They've lived inside that small tank for more than 3 weeks, none died. After that I bought 10 cardinal tetras, 7 neon tetras, 7 guppies, 4 dalmation patterned (or cookies n cream patterned :V) balloon mollies and another 4 GBRs and put them altogether inside that small tank. Then I also add a Chinese/Lemon (?) Algae Eater. I have 1 big rock in the middle of the tank and add 4 types living plants around it (dunno the types/species of those plants).

At first my cardinals and guppies die one by one every 4-5 hours or more. Until there exist no more guppy and only 5 or less cardinals left. The shopkeeper said that the GBRs are probably the cause of death, so I move them to the main tank instead. But now, I brought another 7 guppies and after around 5 hours (or more), another cardinal died.... I do put my hands into the tank a lot to replant the plants that get loose (gonna need to get more soil so it's deep enough for the plant to be planted). So.....:

1. Did they die because of stress (since I put my hand(s) inside the tank quite often)??? If yes, how to prevent or cure this??

2. Is there any difference between the cardinals and neons? Since all I know is the difference in their size, cardinal is 2 times bigger than neon. If there is no difference then why none of my neon died? If there is difference, can you tell me?? It might be the cause of their death....

Sorry if there are some grammar errors since English is not my native language and I'm (was) typing when I'm sleepy.......
 
1. Not directly. For example, a disease should show itself in the fish first
2. No idea what the difference is.
The bottom line is they should not be dying for no reason. There has a be an underlying disease, or what i am thinking, your tank is not cycled.
Read about the Nitrogen cycle, ammonia is probably killing your fish. Change the water often and feed less per meal.
 
^I agree with cycle issue possibly .^

You are also stocking fish with different needs(cards,GBR and neons, guppies??)
The cards and GBR want 82+,the gupps and neons around 76 or less....

An uncycled tank can cause stress which opens the door to many issues...
 
No, the issue didn't lie in the water cycle. I already tried removing the GBRs (moving it to another tank) and then I keep watching the fishes to see if anyone died. Yes, but they all died because of being sucked to the water pump.... Anyone has an idea to fix this???
 
What kind of pump? Is this the 3gl tank?

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Find a small sponge filter to put underneath the intake. Or even a fish net netting and rubberband for a temp fix.

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PoppaRyno said:
Find a small sponge filter to put underneath the intake. Or even a fish net netting and rubberband for a temp fix.

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Click to expand...

But then I won't need the filter above it if I use a sponge for that filter.... And the fish waste will stuck on those sponges instead of inside the filter....

Well after seeing those fishes died, I use this for now.... Will those fish still be sucked in??? Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
 
Double filtration never hurt anything. EVER the more the more the merrier. Especially heavily stocked as you are.

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PoppaRyno said:
Double filtration never hurt anything. EVER the more the more the merrier. Especially heavily stocked as you are.

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Click to expand...

This one is not the heavily stocked one. Only contain 4 balloon mollies, 6 guppies, 5 or less cardinals, 1 Lemon Algae eater, 4 RCS, and 6 Neon tetras (1 just died coz being sucked to the pump).
 
Darkfalcon said:
This one is not the heavily stocked one. Only contain 4 balloon mollies, 6 guppies, 5 or less cardinals, 1 Lemon Algae eater, 4 RCS, and 6 Neon tetras (1 just died coz being sucked to the pump).
Click to expand...

This tank is indeed HEAVILY stocked! If your tank is 39cm, by 29cm, by 25cm, it is only about 7 US gallons. With such a small tank, you shouldn't have more than just the neons OR cardinals*, and possibly the RCS...

There is a site to give you a basic idea of how your stocking level is on your tank. It's called AqAdvisor.com. I put in ALL the CURRENT (not including the ones that have died) fish for your tank and it is off the charts at 428%!

I would highly advise you to dramatically reduce the number of fish in this tank before they all end up sick and die. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm rather new to the hobby, but even I could tell your tank was way over crowded prior to checking what AqAdvisor.com says.
 
Last edited:
I'll think of removing them.... But as far as I know, they should be fine (There will be death, but not everyday, not very often). Since yeah, I tried to put bigger fishes there and none died. But yeah, I should reduce the number or at least, not increase the number. I'll tell you what happen to the tank in the next 3-4 days. Hope no one dies....
 
But when using bigger fishes (some smaller ones included). This small tank has no substrate, no plants, etc. But it has 3 to 5 small rocks (not the tiny ones, just small). No death for more than a week :)

So I thought these smaller fishes will be fine (except for the fact that they can be sucked into the filter....). The neons are still too small, that's why they can be sucked in. I saw that they can be as big as the cardinals.... So I need to get them bigger so that their chances of getting sucked will be small.... Very small....
 
Darkfalcon said:
I'll think of removing them.... But as far as I know, they should be fine (There will be death, but not everyday, not very often). Since yeah, I tried to put bigger fishes there and none died. But yeah, I should reduce the number or at least, not increase the number. I'll tell you what happen to the tank in the next 3-4 days. Hope no one dies....
Click to expand...

Darkfalcon said:
But when using bigger fishes (some smaller ones included). This small tank has no substrate, no plants, etc. But it has 3 to 5 small rocks (not the tiny ones, just small). No death for more than a week :)

So I thought these smaller fishes will be fine (except for the fact that they can be sucked into the filter....). The neons are still too small, that's why they can be sucked in. I saw that they can be as big as the cardinals.... So I need to get them bigger so that their chances of getting sucked will be small.... Very small....
Click to expand...

The problem with the overcrowding isn't that the fish have no room to swim...it's their waste. Unless you are changing all the water everyday (which would prevent any good bacteria and cycling to take place) the build up of ammonia will be too much for the tank to take, thus causing your fish to die a miserable death from ammonia poisoning. If you actually want them to not just survive but also live a decent life, you should remove the majority of those fish. The tank is too small for even just the CAE or just the 4 balloon mollies. With the 4 mollies AND the CAE, it's stocked with more than twice as much as what it should have. Then, you're adding so much more to the bioload with the tetras and guppies.

They're your fish so do what you want, but those fish are suffering...:nono:
 
The RCS can eat the fish waste, and the Plants will require the ammonia from the fish waste for photosynthesis. So I think I got the fish waste problem under control.

I change the water every week or every 5 days and tomorrow I'll change the water as well as adding more sands for the plants. Since I only had a few of them so the plants tend to float again and again.... Troublesome... Now I have more, gonna add them tomorrow
 
Yes they're suffering... But I need more money to get bigger tank for them. I plan to make this small tank to breed the guppies, so it is a temporary tank for them actually...

I'm saving up some money to buy another tank. As well as thinking of where should I put the next bigger tank.... Since I have a very limited amount of space for these tanks..... It's a really small house.....
 
10-10gal tanks minimum is required to properly breed guppies past 1-2 generations.

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