Red Minor Serpae Tetra

[nemo14]

Hello Everyone !

Just a quick question is it possible to poison  Red Minor Serpae Tetra to the point of death with fluctuating co2?

lost 6 out of 8 over the last two days. I bought them two day ago and only two left.I also bought ten long black skirt tetras and they are doing just fine as well as all the other fish.

This is a new tank set up the tank was running for one week before i put the fish in. used all the old media to start new tank.

I'm injecting co2 with a good system the P.H go's from 7.3 down to 6.8 with 4 DKH over a course of 12 hours then off for the night. done very slowly.

So could this have killed my Red Minor Serpae Tetra

Any info would be great.

Thanks in advance.

[vic622]

They are usually a hardy, resilient fish and the fluctuation you mentioned is not extreme unless it had happened suddenly rather than over 12/24hrs.

I'm not inclined to point to your specific tank parameters & variations as being enough to harm a healthy, low stress Serpae which has been introduced with careful acclimation.

I'm more apt to think they were stressed from shipment & treatment prior to your getting them.

I've had fish (incl. Serpae's) crash within 24hrs before. And right now, I have a batch of Serpae's (dozen) which I added to a very young tank, with CO2 who all survived and are coloured up and happily showing their character.

Hope this helps, at least a bit ...

[exv152]

I doubt it was the co2 if it's as you described (a drop of 0.5 in pH), which kind of rules that out. I'd be more inclined to look at the fact that the only seeded beneficial bacteria at this point is in your filter. You may of had a spike in ammonia which eventually got consumed by the BB in the filter. Established tanks have the benefit of having BB on virtually every inner surface of a tank (gravel, plants, rocks, driftwood). Which will consume the bad stuff a lot quicker than if you only had BB in the filter media. Also, adding too many fish in too short a time is also not good. Adding seeded media to a new tank can sometimes give the false sense of security that your tank is fully cycled when it's really maybe only partially cycled.