My fishes are committing suicide!

[clusterbx]

My fishes are recently committing suicide, jumping out of the tank at one per night.

This suicidal jumps occurs only at night and have lost 2 already when not at home.

Latest change is addition of the following into tank 2 days ago and the things happened.

Corydoras Gossei X 2
Corydoras SP X 5
Corydoras Meta X 2

My tank is a 4ft tank and the temperature is steady at 28.5 to 29. No other parameters available as i do not have the test kits.

By the way, can some kind soul info where to obtain test kits at a reasonable price and which test kits to get?

[Sky Devil]

Is there any fish inside constantly chasing others? Or something knock the tank?

[chua]

Hi

I agree with Devil. Check these two things.

Another thing is that maybe your water level is very high reaching the rim of your tank.

Is so, you may want to reduce the water level.

Thks,

[benny]

Exactly what other fishes do you have? What are the species that's jumping out? You need to give more details.

If you have jittery surface fishes like Orange Lyretail or Hatchetfishes, it's not surprising. When the cories goes up for air, it'll scare the surface level fish and they will jump, especially when they can't see what coming at them from below or what above them.

Buy one of these DIY covers made with lighting crate from the fish shop in the mean time.

Cheers,

[hwchoy]

[quote:391ccafc35="benny"]If you have jittery surface fishes like Orange Lyretail or Hatchetfishes, it's not surprising. When the cories goes up for air, it'll scare the surface level fish and they will jump, especially when they can't see what coming at them from below or what above them.

Cheers,[/quote:391ccafc35]

keep a night light?

[benetay]

Does keeping a night light actually help? I've always find hatchet,pencil fish, copella on the floor in the morning when i wake up.

This is what i've done to prevent them to jump.

•Acclimatize them longer.
•Put them in holding tanks or quarantine tanks for at lease a week before introduction to the main tank. The holding tanks should be just beside the main tank or near it so it’ll get use to the lighting hours done by your automatic timer.
•Buy schooling fish in larger numbers. e.g.: 8 pieces if it’s bigger lets say 7-8 cm and 12-20 pieces if it’s smaller. Get more if possible.
•Reduce water level.

You can go to any LFS to get your test kits. Preferably it’ll be Sera.

I've even see my wild guppies jumping out too. What is the real reason behind all these jumping really beats me too. Thus so far the jumping has subdue and lesser fishes have died this way.

When you have such finicky fishes i'll suggest adding fishes slowly into your main tank. Do not disturb them as much as possible. Since you have added new fishes into your tank with finicky fishes , the next time you introduce those surface fishes please do it carefully.

my 2cts worth.

[clusterbx]

Thanks for the advice.

The deceased were Bleeding heart tetra x 1 and Platy x 1.

The other occupants in my tanks are as follows (besides the new corydoras i listed earlier).

Bleeding Heart Tetra X 3
'Rosy fin' Tetra X 3
Lemon Tetra X 3
Neon Tetra X 3
Corydoras Panda X 2
Platy X 1
Corydoras Yellow Cat X 2
Oto X 5
Big yellow shell snail X 2 -Anyone know the names of these snails?

I love Tetra and Corydoras. Hence, the spread of a bit of everything.

Intended to add in 100 Malayan Shrimps to combat algae.

Is it too crowded already?

[benetay]

For a 4ft it's considered okay. No worries for your load but if you intend to up your fishes, do it slowly .

If you plan to stock alot of fishes do remember to add in more filters and do more water change .

From the size of your tetra, it's too small maybe i'll consider you to get more of each kind than many of a little .

Adding 20 to every species(tetra) will overload your tank. So its up to individual . I'll not comment which is good or which isn't.
Tetra by nature school by the thousand so having 3 of each is really too little. What is the norm; IMO will be 50-100 pieces .

[clusterbx]

Thanks, 'benetay'.

Maybe you're right. More of a kind might be more spectacular than little of many kind.

Will patiently add in more Tetras and at the same time scout around for a cover as suggested earlier by another friend.

[MrTree]

even Oto would jump out!