New cardinals starving

[Toothpik]

I bought 10 new tetras..but 3 are like practically starved and one basically has a concaved belly is there any way i can reversed this? what is a food they will absolutely go crazy for?

[soul-hugger]

My daughter recently got 6 "Green Fire Rasboras" that looked for all the life of me like neon tetras with green where the blue is supposed to be. With a little research, we found out they are indeed tetras.

Though four of them looked good, another two looked very skinny. Luckily they seem to be vigorous feeders, and avidly take frozen, finely crumbled flake, and Spectrum slow-sinking pellets for small fish. The best way to find out what your fish will like is to try a few different foods. Most fish go nuts over frozen food. For fish of this size baby brine shrimp, daphnia, mysis shrimp, tubifex, and of course, bloodworms. See how they do with them whole, but if they are too small to eat them whole, you may want to cut them up. The daphnia are very tiny, and easily spread over the tank. Just be very careful not to put too much in at a time, because I have found these tend to pollute the water. A good rule is to put in a little food, and if they eat it all in a minute or two, put in a little more.

At their size I would recommend about three to four very small feedings a day. One could only assume at this size that their stomachs are tiny, and because of this, cannot eat as much at one time as some other fish. Once they are looking healthier, I would drop back to two to three feeds a day, and begin to skip one day a week. In the wild, fish find food sporadically; they don't have regular feedings by a loving hand. This will encourage the fish to hunt for whatever miniscule critters may be living in the tank, as well as giving your filter time to cope with cleaning the water. It will also help prevent an outbreak of unwanted snails, which I learned the hard way.

Do keep an eye on the ones whose bellies look collapsed. If this does not improve with an abundance of food, I would begin to look at other causes for their thinness, such as Chronic Wasting Syndrome, or Neon Tetra Disease. I am not an expert on medications, but some would recommend treating them for internal parasites from the start. But I will leave this for others to discuss, and bid you farewell and good luck.

Bye for now
soul-hugger

[Toothpik]

thank you for the tip well they are all now eating very avidly but now upon closer inspection the one cardinal looks like its belly was bitten off O_O i mean just imagine a cardinal with no underside and thats exactly what he looks like

[soul-hugger]

Glad to hear your new fish are eating well. In the wild, most Tetras are insectivores, so they seem to prefer small meaty-type foods. When I feed my other fish veggies and fruit, these are basically ignored by the tetras, aside from them nibbling a little on green peas. I had also forgotten to mention the freeze-dried foods. They come in the same containers as flakes, but are freeze-dried worms, shrimp, or other critters, formed into a cube. I usually break it into a manageable size, and hold it in the water until it softens and breaks up, beginning to float around the tank. My tetras go nuts for freeze-dried tubifex worms.

I'm not sure why your fish's belly would look like that. It is possible he has been injured, but I would continue to keep an eye on him to see if this improves. How does his upper spine look? I have seen danios and tetras who have crooked spines. This gives them the appearance of having a collapsed underside, and it also affects the upper spine, which may look a little hunched. In fish who have a clear skin, it is possible to see the crooked spine quite clearly underneath. If this is the case with this little one, the news is good. He will live a long and healthy life, and the condition is not contagious, sometimes developing for unknown reasons as a fish grows and matures.

Take Care..,
soul-hugger