Dead fish

[Anna94]

I just found a dead cardinal tetra and I noticed one disappeared a week ago, but I can't find it so maybe it got eaten by my other fish. I tested my water 3 days ago using the Seachem Ammonia and nitrates/nitrites test kits and ammonia was between 0.01 and 0.02. Nitrites were 0 and nitrates were between 7.5 and 10. My other fish are cardinal tetras, lemon tetras, Celebes rainbows, an oto, and a horseface loach. I just noticed another cardinal looks faded in color and a little bloated. I included pics of him and the dead cardinal. Tank is a 29 gallon tall and I do weekly water changes. Ammonia has always been present in my tank and I've done everything possible to lower it to 0 and nothing has worked.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Right, I cannot vouch for seachem test kit, not one I know of very well at all. Am assuming this is a strip kit you dip into water and instant results?

I tend to view these kind of test kits as unreliable, but thats not to say the Seachem ones are like. I'd be intersted to hear if anyone has used these kits and whether its accurate or not.

Anyway, having ammonia present in tank water all the time is not good. Ammonia at any level will have an effect on your stocking in on way or another.
This ammonmia reading coud be down to the actual test kit itself, showing false readings of ammonia, also it could be your tank not cycled 100% (you do not mention if you've cycled this tank or how long you have this tank running for) but I doubt this IF you have had this tank for quite some time with livestocking or lastly possibly you have ammonia in your tap water, but this ammonia when added to the tank would be eradicated in 24 hours or less if your tank is cycled.

Cardinal Tetras are not the hardiest of fish to have around so this is another possible reason. Cardinals need good established tanks with steady water parameters. They do not tend to do very well in newly set up tanks with flucuating water parameters and they require a tank of at least 2 feet long.

Cardinal Tetra

So at this time, its hard to determine what likely causes could be that caused the demise of your cardinals without further information, it would also help if you could also provide the water hardness as well, gH, kH and pH (you can get these off your local water authority website under water quaility and hardness levels).

 

[StevenF]

As far as I know Sachem only swells two test for ammonia. A liquid test kit and a card that is placed in the aquarium The card changes color (up or down) depending on the ammonia levels in the tank. The card is called ammonia alert. Based on her previous post I believe she has a liquid ammonia test kit which is probably accurate.

Based on the numbers posted we can safely assume that nitrogen was not the cause. To look into this further we would need to know GH, KH, PH, for the tank during the same period and compare that to the tap water reading. Perhaps during a water change the fish were shocked by a parameter change in the water. How often do you do a water change and how much? Also what are you adding to the water fertilizers, conditioners meds or anything else. Please list the brands as well as how much of each you apply and how often.