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2 deaths in my tank2007-11-24 23:09:20

..I got up this morning to find one of my platys and one of my cardinals dead in the tank, both with no signs of illness whatsoever...

All the other platys and cardinals (4 of each now) are fine, and my Betta seems OK too... what could have killed them??

I was concerned over this weekend because my tank was getting very warm due to the warm weather we had (in the UK) - the temperature got up to about 84 F/30 C - could this be what killed the fish?

I tested my water today and all is fine - Nitrate is 12, Nitrite is 0 and Ammonia is 0.

The only thing I had noticed with the platy was that she was not growing as large as the other platys and she always had her fins clamped to her body. but the cardinal - I have no idea why he died...!

I'm doing a partial water change tomorrow - is there anything else I should do to ensure the rest of my fish don't suddenly die??

Thanks

Answers:

I've been keeping tropical fish for over 40 years now and I'm afraid this sort of thing happens occasionally and you just have to accept it. I once had a shoal of about 30 Cardinal Tetras die in a few hours but had no problem whatsoever with any of the other tetras in the tank-including Neon's.

Unless the water became too oxygen deficient lifting the temperature to 84掳C shouldn't do any harm.

Water test kits are useful but they are not particularly accurate and without full laboratory facilities it's impossible to test for everything.