Swordtail fry dying. Need some help here

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kasunr

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Oct 23, 2021
Messages
11
I have a problem, my Swordtail fry are dying always when they are around 2 weeks.


I have 10 gallons with 100 fry & feeding Hikari First Bytes & do 90% water change every night. But I also don't have a filter.
1. Food - Hikari first bytes
2. Filter - No filter
3. Fish dying at 2 week


Previous time, I had the same issue & almost 50% died, which made me so sad. At that time I was changing water only every week. So this time I'm changing every day. But still same result.


Is it due to a Ammonia hike during the day time (until I change water in the night)
 
Excessive water changes might be doing more damage than good.

If the water tests fine, leave it alone. Your massive daily water changes are likely causing more harm than good

Get a cheap filter, or even just aeration in there to move water and help with gas exchange
 
Are you testing to see if you have ammonia before your water change?


Just ordered an Amonia Test kit. I'll start to test & will keep posted in progress & results.
Thanks a lot for the idea.
 
Excessive water changes might be doing more damage than good.

If the water tests fine, leave it alone. Your massive daily water changes are likely causing more harm than good

Get a cheap filter, or even just aeration in there to move water and help with gas exchange


Hmm, now I'm understanding how harmful my excessive water change.
Also, I did below



  • I moved all the fish to 50 Gallon tank
  • Added a big sponge filter


I checked today & 2 more little fish seems to doing bad, probably they are already week when I transfer them to 50 Gallon.
Other fish seem to be doing good. But anyway, I'll keep posting status updates.


Thanks a lot for assisting me. It means a lot to me.
 
I did below changes

  • Moved all the fry to 48' X 24' X 24' tank
  • Added 6-7 inches of water
  • Added 2 air stones with high flow
  • Added a 4 X 6 inch sponge filter
  • Did 5-10% water change every day
  • Feed Hikari First Bytes 3-4 times a day
For a couple of days, dying continued in the 2-5 range. Then dropped to 1 dead every 2 days or so for 2-3 days.


Again, due to a personal matter, I had to go out of home & had to skip water changing for the last 2 days. Now I see an increase in the number of fries with clamped fins. Today, I did a 20% water change again.

It’s sad but similar to the previous brood, it seems like this is also going to have around a 75% mortality rate. Last brood was also around 100 fry & ended up finally around 25-30 fish surviving now. They are about 2 months & around 1 inch now.

Additionally, I did below

  • Tested water hardness with TDS meter & found it is around 40
  • Tested PH & found it’s consistently around 5 - 5.5

I ordered an Ammonia Test Kit, which I will get in 2-5 days.
I’ll keep posting about the progress. So, at least will be useful someone.
 
Sharing some more details so be helpful for someone else,


Symptoms I see

  • Some fries have clamped fin, 100 % clamped
  • Some fries wags tails like a snake to move forward
  • All of them eat until last moment.
  • Then they start to lay in the bottom moving laboriously


Swordtail fry success rate/fry death rate

  • Brood 1 - 5 fries - all survived
  • Brood 2 - about 100 - ultimately 30 survived
  • Brood 3 - about 100 - about 30 died & in progress
 
Oh wow your ph is quite low. A quick google check shows swordtails should be in 7-8ph water

I’m far from an expert but if those ph levels are consistent, it’s possible that could be a factor in your high mortality rate
 
Oh wow your ph is quite low. A quick google check shows swordtails should be in 7-8ph water

I’m far from an expert but if those ph levels are consistent, it’s possible that could be a factor in your high mortality rate




Exactly, I'm suspecting the same. I'm going to get some crushed coral.
 
Just be sure to make a slow and gradual change in the ph as a lot of people tend to agree a ph swing is deadly to adult fish let alone the little guys.

It may even be wise to just let this batch run it’s course, then try to have the ph adjusted for the next round of fry
 
Just moving them to a large tank didn't resolve immediately. But for the next batch of 400 fry, I directly added them to a 20 Gallon, & problem gone.
I raised 2 batches each with around 400 fry successfully grown up to 1 month on it.


So, my conclusion is, Ammonia spike caused all the problem
 
Yes i was going to comment when you said no filter and feeding frys. The problem is uneaten food decays and produces ammonia; the frys are extra sensitive to the ammonia and so they die. It isn't that you need a filter (though a fine sponge filter is perfect for frys - when i say fine i mean ppi of 10 or 20 as oppose to 30 or 40). If you didn't feed the frys the ammonia would not spike from decaying food and the fry would not die but they would eventually starve...

What i typically do in all my tanks i have sponge filters and when i need to move something to a new tank or pail (I use a lot of 5 gallon pail) i grab a mature sponge filter from a tank - put it in the new tank or pail and then add fish. I then put anew sponge in the old tank (which has other filtration). The extra nice thing about sponge filters is you can get one medium size (depends on how many sponges) air pump to power them all....

A super good air pump cost around $100; but a good enough air pump cost around $25 and sponge filters are between $5 and $20 depending on size; brand; and other factors....
 
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