3 Benggai cardinals died

[Chris H Reef]

Hello all,

I have a 75 gallon tank that has been running for about 2.5 months. I started my tank with 2 clown fish that have been doing great. About a month after adding the clowns I added 3 benggai cardinals. One of them died within a week of adding them but the other 2 seemed to be healthy.

After about a month in the tank the other 2 cardinals died this week. I have no idea why. They didn’t look diseased and I never saw them fighting. They would eat sometimes but would never be as excited as the clowns at feeding time.

Here are my tank parameters:
ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20
Ph: 8.2
Dkh: 9
Salinity: 1.025

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hello all,

I have a 75 gallon tank that has been running for about 2.5 months. I started my tank with 2 clown fish that have been doing great. About a month after adding the clowns I added 3 benggai cardinals. One of them died within a week of adding them but the other 2 seemed to be healthy.

After about a month in the tank the other 2 cardinals died this week. I have no idea why. They didn’t look diseased and I never saw them fighting. They would eat sometimes but would never be as excited as the clowns at feeding time.

Here are my tank parameters:
ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20
Ph: 8.2
Dkh: 9
Salinity: 1.025

Without specific symptoms and video/pictures it is impossible to say what happened to them. The clownfish still doing fine implies it wasn’t a contagious disease at least.

Wild caught bangaii cardinals have a high mortality rate from a specific viral disease. You shoujj k e avoid buying wild caught ones, and pen raised ones from Asia are also delicate. The best quality ones are captive raised in the US or the EU.