Besides water quality what kills fish?

[Plant Man]

I bought a small Red-Tailed Black Shark yesterday and in the morning he was dead! My tank is immaculately clean, Nitrate is well below 5ppm. I did acclimate him rather quickly. He had 10 minutes in bag then I doubled the water in the bag with water from the tank waited 5min then dumped him in. He seemed perfectly fine for the 4 hours before I went to bed. There were no injuries on the body.

One more thing, after the first hour he was beautiful, Jet black body bright red tail. I was soooo pleased.

Any ideas what could have killed him?

[oranda man]

could be the shock of you you putting him in the water kinda to fast i leave mine for normally 1 hour

[jimw/oscar]

I bought a small Red-Tailed Black Shark yesterday and in the morning he was dead! My tank is immaculately clean, Nitrate is well below 5ppm. I did acclimate him rather quickly. He had 10 minutes in bag then I doubled the water in the bag with water from the tank waited 5min then dumped him in. He seemed perfectly fine for the 4 hours before I went to bed. There were no injuries on the body.

One more thing, after the first hour he was beautiful, Jet black body bright red tail. I was soooo pleased.

Any ideas what could have killed him?

Could be the fish already had something wrong with it and it would have died at the store if you hadn't bought it. Wonder if it was just delivered there?

Anyway, sorry for that - it's always a bummer when you do everything right and you have a loss anyway.

[Plant Man]

could be the shock of you you putting him in the water kinda to fast i leave mine for normally 1 hour

This is what I'm thinking too. I think I'm going to try again later today.

[Fishguy2727]

In this case the acclimation could have.

Long term the other big killer is food quality. Many people think, "I was feeding _______ for five years with no problems, how could that be it?" When really the food was causing something internal and the fish should have lived to be 10 or twenty years old.

[Plant Man]

In this case the acclimation could have.

Long term the other big killer is food quality. Many people think, "I was feeding _______ for five years with no problems, how could that be it?" When really the food was causing something internal and the fish should have lived to be 10 or twenty years old.

He ate some flake in the bag and 3 hours later the whole tank got frozen bloodworms. I feed flake in the morning and bloodworms at around 10pm.

[Wild Turkey]

+1 Sounds like acclimation.

I would recommend feeding bloodworms (and other fatty foods) sparingly. Twice a week after the staple food is plenty imo

[thatcichlidguy]

Best guess, there was either something wrong with the fish to start with or just didn't acclimate. It happens. About 2 years ago I got a group of Aequidens sp. "Jennaro Herrera" that only 1 survived. The rest simply failed to acclimate. With the exception of 1 who was killed by the survivor. Might have still been sick to start with,they were wild caught, but had been at the store for some time and very active so I mostly ruled that out. They hid and simply refused eat . All this despite water params that were excellent and interestingly very close to perfect for the species and a lengthy acclimation process. Sometimes they just don't make it.

[HeatherH]

That sucks Plant Man. RT sharks are great, I love mine.

Mine is pretty tough. He survived the tank disaster I had when I joined here that killed half of my fish,and he got pretty sick himself. He's a tough little bugger.

Yours must have been fragile. Might want to slow down on plopping him in the tank next time. I'm thinking that may have been what happened to him,too.

[tanks4thememories]

I bought a small Red-Tailed Black Shark yesterday and in the morning he was dead! My tank is immaculately clean, Nitrate is well below 5ppm. I did acclimate him rather quickly. He had 10 minutes in bag then I doubled the water in the bag with water from the tank waited 5min then dumped him in. He seemed perfectly fine for the 4 hours before I went to bed. There were no injuries on the body.

One more thing, after the first hour he was beautiful, Jet black body bright red tail. I was soooo pleased.

Any ideas what could have killed him?

How do you acclimate a fish? This sounds like a case of PH shock to me. If the PH is more than .4 variance in either direction between the bag water and your tank then there is a good chance delicate fish will react poorly to the change. The drip method is best: Put new fish in a small container in the old water from the bag. Then slowly add water from your tank maybe half a cup at a time over an hr or 2. That is the fast method and works good when there are PH differences. The two most common killers to new fish in a new tank are PH and temperature.