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Re: Cardinals and Neons



Back when I worked in a pet store, the owners wouldn't stock neons or 
cardinals because they said they would lose 50% of the stock 2 days after it 
arrived, and more losses as time wore on.

I convinced them to buy another batch of cardies and let me take care of 
them. I cleaned the &$#& out of the 20g tank they were going in, no central 
filters in the freshwater tanks only ug's, removed the ug plates and put in 
a cycled bio-wheel 160. pH of the tap water there is 7.6, rather hard. The 
cardies came in (50 of 'em in a large bag of water). I tested the water in 
the bag when it got there and it was 6.0!! I dropped an airstone and put a 
coupla drops of amquel in the bag and watched the pH climb to 6.7. So the 
bag was low on oxygen. Too much CO2 from the fish. 

I left the airstone running for another hour, and scooped out a cupfull of 
water and started dripping water from the tank they're going to. After a 
coupla hours the water had been almost completely exchanged, pH was 7.5. 
Close enough. I dumped them in the tank at that point, not netting them for 
fear of damaging them physically. I figured the risk of disease from the bag 
was much lower than the risk of harming them. 

I put a "Not for sale" sign on the tank for 2 days. Lost only one cardie. 
The rest sold out completely over the next week. 

Needless to say, if properly cared for and transferred (unless there are 
other factors as have been mentioned), the fish will do just fine. :-) 

Whew! That was long! LoL 

DonT