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What am I doing wrong? I picked up 8 rummy nose tetras yesterday. Got them home, put the bag in my tank, let it sit for about 20 min(to bring it up to temp) then started putting in about 4 oz. of my tank water every 10 min. After about an hour of doing this I carefully netted them out of the bag and into my tank. Within
an hour 1 died. I took the one and a sample of my water back to the LFS. They tested my water, 0 Ammo,0 Nit, PH 7.0. He said my water was the same as they had at the store. They swapped out my fish and away I went back home, only to find that another was laying belly up on the bottom, and by this morning all I could find 4 swimming (and looking well) and 2 fish bodies half ate on the bottom. I know, I know "what do you have in you tank?" well all I have in there is 1 apple snail and a 4" male bristlenose pleco, whom I've had for 4 years now and has successfully been in a tank with rummynose in the past. I assume the pleco got a hold of the "sick" ones laying on the bottom and made a meal of them. But what am I doing wrong. This LFS is reputable, and get most of there fish from local breeders. Am I acclimating them too fast? Please help, I hate losing fish.

My experience with Rummy Nose Tetra is that they are not the easiest Tetras to keep. I had a similar problem; I bought 5 Rummy Nose and over the course of a month 3 died. I have had the remaining 2 for over 3 months now. I haven't been able to find 3 more to replace the 3 that passed on though. So the school is not complete. They are beautiful fish though.

Are you putting the store water in your tank

I think the best method for introducing anyfish is to let it sit for about 30-40 min in the water and then geltly empty the bag into the tank.

I also find that it helps to introduce them with the lights off when there are other tank inhabetents. Thats just my method.

Inky

No, I'm not putting the LFS water in the tank. I've always heard that's not a good thing to do, especially if it's one of the chain stores. I think my research has answered my question. I need to take more time acclimating them to my water. Keep lights off and place them in a dark bag for the ride home. I still can't believe they didn't give me a bag to put them in. Well back to the store the get some more. These guys just look so good I can't give up.

BLUIDMIK
I am the exact same way when it comes to loosing a single fish...the way you acclimated sounds textbook to me.
Lights out definately..also feed the exsisting inhabitants prior to introducing the additions.
don't feed till next day.
another factor you might want to look at is the water hardness they prefer softer water and they are more at home in water with a pH of 5-6
Rummy's are nice they school real tight.

BLUIDMIK,

Sorry to hear about your loss.

I agree with an earlier post where it was mentioned that Runnies are on the fragile end of the terta family.

Further, I agree with you that you may have found the source of your problem as my questions would have been:

Do you happen to know how longe they have been at the LFS already? How long is the trip from the LFS to your place? Was there a major difference in temperature during this transport? And last but not least, and just in case, how long has this tank been set up for (you say the BN is 4 years with you, but I don't know if this was in that tank)?

So basically, my main concern was the LFS stay time of the fishies and the transport.

Good luck,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Hi. I know how you feel. I had a similar experience a few months ago. I got 6 Rummies at a good LFS. I lost 2 within the first week. The other 4 are still with me today. Well I had looked at many LFS for rummies and couldn't find any. I finally found a place that would order them for me. I ordered 6 and picked them up as soon as they came in. They never went into the store tank. I took them home and one was dead in the bag while acclimating. I let the bag sit for a little over 30 minutes. I poured some water into the bag and let it sit for another 20 mins or so. Well to make a long story short, I ended up losing all 6 fish over 4 or 5 days. I didn't take them back because I had already gotten rid of the first couple. Then I didn't have time to take the other dead ones back. So I lost all that money and didn't have anything to show for it.

Here is the post I made. About half way down Calilessia explains the way rummies are bred. It explains why they are so fragile.

Good luck with your remaining ones. I guess the toughest ones make it.

*Kristin*

Hey Bluidmik, sorry to hear about your loss. I had 6 rummy nose and now sadly only have 4. My LFS actually medicates their fish before they will sell them. I'm not sure what they medicate with, some anti-stress thing.

Just a thought, I read on the bottle of my Aquatan (water conditioner) that it could be used to help new additions to aquariums by basically soaking them in a mixture of that and tank water.

I think the advice above is the best tho, lights off and slow introduction.

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Those who say they cant, Never will !!!

Last night I went back to the LFS I had purchased the rummy nose at, to see if I could get my money back. They said absolutely and that the deaths were nothing I had done, but rather that they had just recieved in the fish and admitted they were probably selling them too quickly. Apparently this was only there second batch of rummy nose to ever get in. I'm going back in a few days to pick up 4 more. The four that made it are doing great. Thanks for all the replies, it really does help to get affirmation on how your taking care of your fish. The more research you do the more confused you can sometimes get. These forums are so helpful.

Rummy-Noses are infamously hard to transport, because they possess unusual amounts of a chemical that lots of small tetras have: when one is frightened, it releases this chemical to warn the other members of the school that there is danger near. But in a small closed container, Rummy-Noses can release enough of this chemical to throw each other into shock and literally frighten themselves to death! It happened to me once, with 3 of them on a trip lasting no more than 10 minutes -- they were in a large jar crowded in with a bunch of other fish (all of whom came through unscathed), and presumably the crowd made them feel threatened. If you transport them, make sure that you keep them in an opaque bag so that they can't see out -- and make sure that the bag isn't too crowded.

In my experience, once you get them safely home, they're not as delicate as some books make out. (Also, when they aren't feeling well, the bright red color on their faces fades dramatically -- which means that you can use them as living monitors of water condition for the aquarium as a whole.)