Why do some of my fish die when I introduce them to my tank ? ...?

Question

I have a 55 gallon fresh water tank all non-agressive, community type fish. The water is fine ...no problems there. The temperature is right on. Yet, when I go to a PetCo store and buy .. say, a Goldburst Pladdy, and one other similiar kind of fish .. one of the two will die. I leave the bag in the water for 20 minutes as told .. before I release them .. right now, 2 from last night are alive, but one is at the top of the water .. staying in one place and did not swim over for food like the others do .. so I assume this fish will die soon. I have a small neon tetra in the tank as the "canary" to warn me if something else might be wrong ...as they tend to die the easiest .. he has been in the tank for 2 1/2 months .. no problem.. no problems with the other fish .. just new ones .. one out of two .. or two out of 3 new ones may die . Any ideas as to why this is happening ? Thank you .

The one at the top is NOT a dead floater .. just won't move from the one spot ..

Yes the water has been tested , it is fine .. it has a heater .. 78 degrees, it has two filters .. everything is set up correctly.. has nothing to do with that at all .

Answer 1

I always add aquarium salt to the tank when adding a new fish. Before adding the new fish to the tank, you should add a cup of your own tank water into the bag, wait 20 min and take a cup of water out of the bag and add another cup of tank water back in. Do this three or four times to slowly acclimate the new fish to the specifics of your own tank. Don't feed your fish the day of and the day after a new fish. It will give your beneficial bacteria a chance to catch up with the new additions. It doesn't affect your original fish as they are not suffering from the stress of being shipped from the supplier to the pet store and then to your own tank.
A

Answer 2

While fish is still in the bag ,make a hole in the bag big enough for the water to come in &allow the fish to escape the bag on his own.Also make sure to add stress coat to the bag before placing in the water this will protect the fish from shock.More than likely that is the problem .No matter what you do some fish die from the shock of being moved .but allowing the fish to leave the bag on his own tends to make the transition a little less stressfull rather than just dumping him into a new inviroment after 20 minutes in a bag sitting at the top of the water.Good Luck!

Answer 3

If you bought them last night, then you are buying them at the wrong time; I think!

If I'm not mistaken, they get their new fish in on Thursdays or Fridays (ask when they get them), so what you are doing is buying fresh fish that have a higher death rate. What you want to do is go in the day or night before they get new fish and buy those fish, because they have been in the store for almost a week and they have survived.

You also want to look at the condition of their tanks when you buy your fish. Their tanks use a shared filtration system, so if one tank has got a disease then all the tanks are going to have a disease, so you are not going to want to buy fish that week.

By buying fish that have been there for a week you are essentially extending your guarantee by a week that they have been in their store.

Answer 4

I workd a pet store that sold fishes and we not only told people to float the bag in the water so the fishes adjust to the temperature we also recommended adding small amounts of the tank water into the bag a few minutes apart. The water at the pet store may have slight chemical diffences and the slow introduction of the water will get them adjusted to it.

Answer 5

you haven't any longer cycled your tank precise, you may enable the filter out run from everywhere between 4-8weeks so as that micro organism can colonise on your tank and make it secure to your fish. The pink lips on your barb shows that your ammonia is purely too severe and your fish have ammonia poisoning. make certain you do 25-40% water transformations customary or 2 and look at your water parameters (A,N,etc..) as oftern as you may to make effective your ranges are secure. additionally your tank is a good distance overcrowded aswell, Angel fish and rainbow sharks can get very vast, 6inches+ for the shark, 10 for the angel especially situations. you will could improve your tank to a pair of 40gallons+ in case you want to maintain all those fish and upload extra barbs as they are education fish (6+). in case you dont want to enhance your tank then return all those fish and do slightly learn on what fish can stay in a 10gallon tank.

Answer 6

I used to have ten tanks in my room when I was a kid ::: this is just to say that I know enough about fish ::: and I read your question ::: and I believe that I understand what you mean ::: you must have checked everything ::: and now, you are just wondering ::: so ::: yes, there IS a question here ::: why would a fish die like this, for no obvious reason ::: there are two types of answers ::: one, a logical one ::: the other, a mystical one ::: the logical one can only be that you are sold old or tired fish ::: the mystical answer has to be like this:

THE FISH DIE
BECAUSE
IT
WANTS
TO
TELL YOU
SOMETHING
BUT
YOU
CAN'T BE
LISTENING.

You must know
what I am talking about and if you don't
well
that's okay.

Goodluck! =)

Answer 7

There are a lot of factors that could be causing this. How old is your aquarium? It could be OTS (Old Tank Syndrome). This has a lot to do with your water's pH parameter. Do you measure the pH the fish were in prior to introducing them? If not - you need to, and if there is a great variance I would put them into a 5g bucket and slowing add water from the tank you are wanting to introduce them into (over a period of at least 2 hours).

Here's an article for you on OTS...
http://www.thepufferforum.com/articles/small/ots.html

Good luck!

Answer 8

You should add water from your tank a little at a time to the bag you got from the store. There water may have different propertys in it that t fish have to adapt to

Answer 9

there could possibly be an infection in the tank from one of the fish and it's possible that the other fish you have could have become imune to it. your fish could be sick on it's own were so you buy them if you go to a pet store and see any dead fish in the tank of fish you are trying to get do NOT purchase any from that tank if they are dying there is something wrong with them ALL despite what the pet store may say.

Answer 10

Have you treated your water? Make sure the water is treated, do you have a heater in the tank?