swordtail question

lil shant · Member Joined: 08 May 2005 Posts: 176

its really hard for me to keep a swordtail everytime i go and buy a swordtail they die can u tell me how to be able to keep them without dieng my water is perfect and like the rest of my fish r alive and they feel good can tell me what to do to be able to keep swortail

Trickster · Member Joined: 05 Apr 2005 Posts: 309 Location: My Chair

i also find it hard to keep them alive, but now i got 3 happily living.

1st of all do u float the fish properly? Is the tank you buy them from clean? where do u buy them from? If everytime u buy them from the same place it could be that theres a disease in the 1 tank.

Swordtails poop ALOT! They produce alot of waste so u cant keep them with alot of fish.

lil shant · Member Joined: 08 May 2005 Posts: 176

i float them for 15 minutes adn the tank i buy them from they r all happy adn swimming good and like the the first they they swim good and act like fish adn they start dieng i buy them at a store called pet extreme it is
huge

kc5gvn · Moderator Joined: 15 Mar 2004 Posts: 1147

Hi lil shant, It sounds like you are not acclimating them to the PH in the tank. Floating the bag for 15 minutes acclimates them to the temperature of the tank only. After floating the bag for 15 minutes add 1 cup of water from the tank into the bag. Every ten minutes after that add another cup of water from the tank to the bag until you have twice as much water in the bag than you started with. This acclimates them to the tank PH and the trace elements in the tank. Fish can go into PH shock as much as 2 weeks after introduction into the tank.
Symptoms of PH shock: Fish will swim normally then all of a sudden they will jerk and dart around the tank. They will begin to swim normally again and then go into the darting movement again. They will continue to do this until they die.

lil shant · Member Joined: 08 May 2005 Posts: 176

wow i never new that u had to add water to freshwater fish i will try it next time tanx for the info