Cardinal Tetra died

[Hulkson88]

I bought a school of 10 cardinal tetras for my planted tank. 3 days later one of them died, parameters are all fine, 0ppm ammonia and nitrite, 10-20ppm nitrate. What could be the cause of the death?

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Hi @Hulkson88, welcoome to the forum. Without further information this could have been stress or illness it already had when you got it home. 

You'll want to watch for odd behaviors or physical signs from the rest of the tetras. Sadly it is not uncommon to lose fish when you first bring them home. Which is why before adding more fish you'll want to quarantine new ones for illness and observation.

[nabokovfan87]

On 5/23/2022 at 5:04 PM, Hulkson88 said:

I bought a school of 10 cardinal tetras for my planted tank. 3 days later one of them died, parameters are all fine, 0ppm ammonia and nitrite, 10-20ppm nitrate. What could be the cause of the death?

Welcome,

As mentioned it could just be the stress of going from the store to your house. It does happen.  If you see more die off, I would check all of your parameters and your temperature.  If they are eating and doing ok, you should be ok to start the QT process with meds (if you haven't).

[TonyRs5]

I have a 125 community with a bunch of weird fish, however, it has probably 20 or more tetra other than cardinals, the weird thing is that I can't keep more than 2 cardinals alive in this tank.  I have tried a few times to keep them in a large school as they are great to watch, however, they won't stay alive when all of my other tetras are thriving, my LFS more or less told me that it is what it is and for whatever reason they don't do well in my tank.  After a few attempts I gave up and just built a larger school of the other types.  Good luck!