BrendaJ Posted March 23, 2014 Report Share Posted March 23, 2014 Last week I bought 6 silver hatchetfish to add to my community tank. Since then, the following casualties have been: - 1 of the aforementioned silver hatchetfish (died the day after I introduced it into my tank) - 5 lemon tetras - 2 cardinal tetras - 3 ember tetras I have extremely infrequent deaths in my tank, so this is very troubling. The other inhabitants of my tank are so far unaffected: - bolivian rams - marble hatchetfish, and no other silver hatchetfish have died - african dwarf frog - shrimp I've noticed that the fish, before dying, have had some pale patches. Sometimes they swim apart from the others. I've tested my water parameters and all is good. I usually do a 25% water change each week, but the day before I added my new hatchetfish, it had been three weeks (my bad!) since my last WC. I did a WC then, bought and added the new fish, and am now back on track and have done another WC just yesterday. My questions: - Did my sketchy water changing bring this on? - Is this the dreaded neon tetra disease? - Did these new hatchetfish bring something nasty with them? - How should I proceed? Thank you so much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geleen Posted March 23, 2014 Report Share Posted March 23, 2014 (edited) This could be because of the addition. If they were not separate for a month or so they could have brought disease. the addition of more fist overwhelmed the filter....how did you clean it the day before? The pale patches sounds like ammonia. depending on your bio load 25% per week may or not be enough. This time of year there may be more ammonia in the water (spring runoff) and I add more prime for the month of March and April. Edited March 23, 2014 by geleen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrendaJ Posted March 23, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 23, 2014 This could be because of the addition. If they were not separate for a month or so they could have brought disease. the addition of more fist overwhelmed the filter....how did you clean it the day before? The pale patches sounds like ammonia. depending on your bio load 25% per week may or not be enough. This time of year there may be more ammonia in the water (spring runoff) and I add more prime for the month of March and April. Hi geleen, I did clean the filter before adding the new fish. I took it apart, rinsed everything in a large bowl of tank water and replaced one foam insert. I also added twice the amount of Prime that I usually do because I have heard that the Spring run-off can cause ammonia jumps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geleen Posted March 23, 2014 Report Share Posted March 23, 2014 This could be because of the addition. If they were not separate for a month or so they could have brought disease. the addition of more fist overwhelmed the filter....how did you clean it the day before? The pale patches sounds like ammonia. depending on your bio load 25% per week may or not be enough. This time of year there may be more ammonia in the water (spring runoff) and I add more prime for the month of March and April. Hi geleen, I did clean the filter before adding the new fish. I took it apart, rinsed everything in a large bowl of tank water and replaced one foam insert. I also added twice the amount of Prime that I usually do because I have heard that the Spring run-off can cause ammonia jumps. The filter is the likely culprit, likely not enough bacteria left for the additional fish. Ammonia and NitrItes build up quickly and killed the fish.These new fish were stressed and would have been weak to start......We have all been there done that I am afraid. pls consider a quarantine tank for new fish they are the likely cause of fish death in an existing tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckmullin Posted March 23, 2014 Report Share Posted March 23, 2014 (edited) sorry to hear about the fish deaths. Edited March 23, 2014 by ckmullin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrendaJ Posted March 23, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 23, 2014 This could be because of the addition. If they were not separate for a month or so they could have brought disease. the addition of more fist overwhelmed the filter....how did you clean it the day before? The pale patches sounds like ammonia. depending on your bio load 25% per week may or not be enough. This time of year there may be more ammonia in the water (spring runoff) and I add more prime for the month of March and April. Hi geleen, I did clean the filter before adding the new fish. I took it apart, rinsed everything in a large bowl of tank water and replaced one foam insert. I also added twice the amount of Prime that I usually do because I have heard that the Spring run-off can cause ammonia jumps. The filter is the likely culprit, likely not enough bacteria left for the additional fish. Ammonia and NitrItes build up quickly and killed the fish.These new fish were stressed and would have been weak to start......We have all been there done that I am afraid. pls consider a quarantine tank for new fish they are the likely cause of fish death in an existing tank. Hi geleen, thanks for your reply. I did test the water after the first fish died and the levels were, and still are fine. And only one of the new fish has died. The others have all been from my old stock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrendaJ Posted March 23, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 23, 2014 sorry to hear about the fish deaths. Hi ckmullin, Thanks for the condolences! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyfisher Posted March 23, 2014 Report Share Posted March 23, 2014 +1 quarantine, the new fish may have brought something with them they would have a partial immunity but your existing fish would have none,so it would take a greater tole on them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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