Species only tank - dwarf neon rainbows. Yes? No?

[Emika_B]

Aloha all!  My 40-ish gallon tank is coming along well.  The plants are really filling in and the parameters are stable.  I’m rather happy with it.

The quarantine process has been a bit rough, though.  The first round was 5 dwarf neon rainbows and 9 male guppies.  All of the rainbows survived but only 2 of the guppies made it through.  Next round was 5 dwarf neon rainbows and 15 rummy nose tetras.  Again, the rainbows are doing fine but only 1 rummy nose is still alive.  In hindsight I think the rummies weren’t healthy to start with, so I’m glad to have any survive.

So, now I’m wondering if I should  just re-home the 2 guppies and 1 rummy nose and go forward with a huge school of dwarf neon rainbows?  Or on the next round of quarantine should I fill in the schools of the other two?

[marionmaymay]

where are you getting the fish from? perhaps you should try buying a new batch from a different store? could there be a possibility that the store you originally bought the fish that died from might not be on top of taking care of them..?

I mean, if it's a cycled tank and your parameters are fine, then that doesn't make sense why you're having so many fish die. 

(course I'm a fairly new fish owner myself so I probably don't know what I'm talking about, I started the aquarium hobby last summer during quarantine lol) 

[Biotope Biologist]

From what I have heard (I have no experience personally) rummynose tetra, especially wild caught can be quite sensitive to transport and water quality. Not saying the latter is true here in this case. 

 

But you shouldn't be experiencing this loss of life with such robust fish species as the guppy. I would suspect your fish store may be getting poor quality shipments. 

[Emika_B]

Marionmaymay and Biotope Biologist - The fish all died in quarantine, not the big tank, though I do generally use water from the big tank for quarantine since I know it’s ‘quality’ water.  The quarantine tank is cycled, though, and I generally test water before starting on the meds.  I’m not too worried about the water quality in quarantine, but one never can tell once meds are added since it makes test readings unreliable.

The guppies were from a major national chain and tanks looked clean, the fish were in good condition (no obvious scale or fin issues).  I was rather bummed that so many didn’t make it.  The rummies, I really shouldn’t have purchased them from that shop.  There were sickly looking fish and I don’t think they were quality stock.  Fortunately, the rainbows I bought from that shop are doing just fine.  I’ve had problems with this shop before but they’re the only ones I’ve found so far that carry the rummies.  The hunt continues.

[marionmaymay]

hmm...perhaps the meds are too...potent? 

[mikrogeophagus]

What size is your quarantine?

It is strange that the guppies had a hard time, but it seems you may have found the issue with the rummynose.

[Emika_B]

Marionmaymay - While I don’t think it was the meds themselves the fish may have been too weak to handle it.

Mikrogeophagus - It’s a 10 gallon plastic tub, a la Irene.  I have no idea why I lost so many of the guppies - no obvious external causes of death, fins and scales all in good condition.  I’ll probably add 2 or 3 more when the latest round of quarantine dwellers are in the big tank.

[Emika_B]

Update - I ended up getting more rummies but from a different shop.  I was going to go with the rainbows but they were out.  Oddly enough, they did have rummies.  Yeah, I’m a glutton for punishment.  Fingers crossed!

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Good luck! I've personally done better by switching to a different fish source. 

[Emika_B]

XXInkedPhoenixX - It’s funny but I used to consider this shop as just kind of ‘meh.’  Not pretty at all, cramped and somewhat dusty.  But, from the three shops I bought fish from, it was the only one that didn’t have any fish die in quarantine.  So, when it turned out that they had rummies I decided to press my luck.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Well there ya go! Maybe it's dusty because they spend all their time taking care of the fish (and customers). The one I ended up landing at and trusting is also small and a little cramped but they do seem to care (I haven't checked for dust hehe)

[GardenStateGoldfish]

the fact that you asking about rainbows makes me want to say yes even though i have never kept rainbows. Rainbow keepers are cultish like goldfish keepers (me!) so yes, keep the rainbows you want. 

but because i am a goldfish keeper I say no, keep goldfish instead 😄

 

[Emika_B]

GardenStateGolfish - I started out on this journey hoping to keep goldfish.  However it gets very warm here.  I have a temperature control that turns on a heater or fans as needed for the tank.  The fans are set to turn on if the water gets to 79 degrees.  A few weeks ago that happened every day for a week by about 10 AM.  And it was only March.  I know there are local breeders so goldies raised here are used to warmer water.  It just didn’t seem fair to the fish so I nixed the goldfish idea.

Someone here recommended dwarf neon rainbows.  I picked up 5 (I couldn’t get the male/female ratio I wanted so I kept it to a small group) and found them to be quite attractive.  Honestly, I don’t really like the other rainbows, just these guys.  A friend of mine has bosemani (?) and though he thinks they are the loveliest fish ever, I just don’t see it.

[Emika_B]

XXInkedPhoenixX - Just goes to show, don’t judge a book by its cover.  I’ve been checking on the new kids and though they’re a bit skittish they look hale and hearty.  Keeping the fingers crossed for another day, then it’s on to the med trio.  With fish from two different shops in the same quarantine tank, I’m not going to take chances.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

I will cross my fingers for you! Good luck!