Dead Fish

[JohnnyFish]

hello, I went to my lfs yesterday and picked up 6 more ember tetras for my 37l aquarium, I now have 10. I woke up to only count 9, and relised one was floating in the bottom, I have checked my water and will attach a picture of the fish, I don't notice anything in particular, I'm going to do water change (but how much?). is there any medication I should dose, the other fish seem ok.

thank you

 

[JohnnyFish]

here's the pictures.

 

[jonny-5]

Sometimes the stress of a new tank alone is enough to kill a healthy fish that you saw in the shop.
Do you only have the Tetras in the tank?
How long has the tank been running for?
Did you acclimatise them first?

Also a 37L is not much space for that amount of fish so maybe that contributed too

Water changes are normally 25% weekly

But also because it died in such a short space of time it could of been New tank syndrome

I would not treat with any medications as you dont know what the problem is. Just leave them be for now, keep the water clean & make sure they have plenty of hiding places to feel secure

If you plan on keeping them all i would consider a bigger tank

 

[JohnnyFish]

the tank is relatively new itself, but I swapped it over from an established tank, (about 1.5 years old) as it had a crack, I moved most their old water swell as substrate and filter media, and a few plants too. I have now 9 ember tetras and 2 Bolivian tetras, I've ordered some plants from tropica and I'm planning on scanning it properly soon. I dropped the bags in the tank to match the temp then I drip acclimated them for about 30 minutes. as for the tank size I'm not sure because there's so many conflicting points about how many fish per litre or in a planted tank etc. the Bolivian lemon tetras are about 3 now so I can't see them being around too much longer, which will free up some space.

 

[JohnnyFish]

sorry my typing skills are atrocious!

 

[jonny-5]

Typing skills are fine to me
As a general rule 1 fish approx 1- 1 1/2 inch long needs 1 gallon of water so here in U.K thats 4.5L.
So you could house maybe 4/5 adults at 2 - 2 1/2 inch long again depending on adult size of fish.
People forget that when the fish are young they are fairly small & LFS feeds are minimal so when you get home & start feeding daily with better foods,After a few weeks/months they have probably doubled in size

The Bolivian Tetra can grow to 2 inches so again this reduced your tank space before you added the new fishes
Plus they may need more than 2 to feel safe
The Emperor Tetra is 3 Inch when adult sized, So a guess is there around half of that now.

I do think that the lack of space combined with New tank syndrome has killed the Emperor
Ive done it myself in the past, Hope you get sorted

Im not judging you by the way as you did the acclimatising right & you used established media,Also you have fish that are a few years old. So you must be doing something right

 

[the_lock_man]

I think you've probably added too many fish at once, into too small a tank. Rule of thumb is to increase the bioload by no more than 30%, and you've pretty much doubled it and I suspect caused an ammonia spike. I'd be interested to know an ammonia figure, as that would prove or disprove my theory. It's difficult to read the test result, but it looks like you might have a small amount of nitrite too.

 

[JohnnyFish]

Typing skills are fine to me
As a general rule 1 fish approx 1- 1 1/2 inch long needs 1 gallon of water so here in U.K thats 4.5L.
So you could house maybe 4/5 adults at 2 - 2 1/2 inch long again depending on adult size of fish.
People forget that when the fish are young they are fairly small & LFS feeds are minimal so when you get home & start feeding daily with better foods,After a few weeks/months they have probably doubled in size

The Bolivian Tetra can grow to 2 inches so again this reduced your tank space before you added the new fishes
Plus they may need more than 3 to feel safe

I think you've probably added too many fish at once, into too small a tank. Rule of thumb is to increase the bioload by no more than 30%, and you've pretty much doubled it and I suspect caused an ammonia spike. I'd be interested to know an ammonia figure, as that would prove or disprove my theory. It's difficult to read the test result, but it looks like you might have a small amount of nitrite too.

hi guys thanks for the advice, I did a 50% water change and added some bacterial boost and extra waterconditioner. looking at the test I think the nitrite is zero but could be wrong. ill watch them closely over the next few days and see what happens. the rest all seem fine and there's no signs of an ammonia spike so far. may have just been a pretty weak fish, as it didn't seem to have any discolouration on the gills

 

[JohnnyFish]

I think you've probably added too many fish at once, into too small a tank. Rule of thumb is to increase the bioload by no more than 30%, and you've pretty much doubled it and I suspect caused an ammonia spike. I'd be interested to know an ammonia figure, as that would prove or disprove my theory. It's difficult to read the test result, but it looks like you might have a small amount of nitrite too.

Im not sure if I have an ammonia test kit, to they stock them at most fish stores?

 

[JohnnyFish]

Typing skills are fine to me
As a general rule 1 fish approx 1- 1 1/2 inch long needs 1 gallon of water so here in U.K thats 4.5L.
So you could house maybe 4/5 adults at 2 - 2 1/2 inch long again depending on adult size of fish.
People forget that when the fish are young they are fairly small & LFS feeds are minimal so when you get home & start feeding daily with better foods,After a few weeks/months they have probably doubled in size

The Bolivian Tetra can grow to 2 inches so again this reduced your tank space before you added the new fishes
Plus they may need more than 2 to feel safe
The Emperor Tetra is 3 Inch when adult sized, So a guess is there around half of that now.

I do think that the lack of space combined with New tank syndrome has killed the Emperor
Ive done it myself in the past, Hope you get sorted

Im not judging you by the way as you did the acclimatising right & you used established media,Also you have fish that are a few years old. So you must be doing something right

I forgot to add, they're Ember tetras, rather than emperor, so they're pretty tiny

 

[FishGuest5123]

Could have just been the stress of moving the fish. Losing one is normal.

 

[the_lock_man]

Im not sure if I have an ammonia test kit, to they stock them at most fish stores?

Your biggest indicator of an ammonia spike is fish dying, tbf.

You don't have an ammonia kit, none of the strip tests have them on, AFAIA. Most LFS will have a chemical test kit for ammonia, as do Amazon.

 

[JohnnyFish]

Your biggest indicator of an ammonia spike is fish dying, tbf.

You don't have an ammonia kit, none of the strip tests have them on, AFAIA. Most LFS will have a chemical test kit for ammonia, as do Amazon.

im 90% sure it was just a weak fish. I've done 2 water changes since and all the other fish are healthy and not showing any signs of poor water, thank you though I'm going to have a look on amazon for a kit

 

[Slaphppy7]

IMO, EVERY freshwater fish keeper needs one of these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000255NCI/?tag=ff0d01-20