# Experience with farm-raised Cardinal Tetras?



## OVT (Aug 26, 2010)

My LFS has 30-40 farm-raised Cardinal Tetras which they received a day ago and that are up for sale at 1/2 of what I have to pay at other LFFs. I've been looking for cardinals to add to my 37G, so, looks like a good find. The fish behaves normally: swims and schools around, no floaters, and in much better apparent condition that you would normally find at LFS and they have not lost any from that batch.

Two things bother me: color and shape. Their top stripe is a nice iridescent blue, but a lighter color then on cardinals I have in my 75G. Their bottom area is a wash-out pinkish red color. Not too bad, especially given that the fish is one day off the plane. Let's assume the colors will improve in my planted tank.

My bigger issue is that the majority of that fish have what looks like a small lump in their bellies, closer to their heads then to their middles. Like they swallowed a small pebble. From the side they look like they have a ship keel. Internal parasites? Deformity? Something else? I have no clue, they just did not look right to me even at 1/2 price.

In the end, I decided to come back in a couple of days to check them out again, as I'd rather have "expensive live" fish then "cheap/deformed dead" fish in my tank.

Any insight would be much appreciated.


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## TAB (Feb 7, 2009)

Could be anything, checking on them in a week or so is a good idea.

Farm raised does not mean disease free, nor does it mean quality fish.


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

I would quarantine and treat as needed. 

Ditto Tab: Give them more than just a day or so at the store. You may be right, and all you are seeing is shipping stress, and a little food will make everything OK, or you might be seeing an indication of a real problem.


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## roval (Nov 12, 2007)

I just set up a new 20 gallon long for the past month and I stocked it with what the LFS told me were tank raised cardinals. The 65 gallon I have dismantled for the past 1 1/2 years had cardinals which I collected in batches. They were back then obviously wild caught. Usually I passed on some beat up specimens but then I would buy 5-6 decent looking smaller ones that were actively schooling. They usually would take a while to eat(several days) while in quarantine. First few days they would ignore the flakes and some of the micro pellets but when they started eating they were ok. The supposedly tank raised ones I saw had good size and was well filled out. I didn't quarantine them since they were my only fish in the tank. I never had a loss and all ate within the same day. Color for me was the same. They retailed for $3.99. I had bought 9 initially and left about 20 in the lfs. I decided to come back for more but the next day everything was gone as one guy cleaned out the tank once he saw how "clean looking" they were. I bought additional fish from the next weeks shipment from the same supplier and have had the same success with the first batch.
If these were tank raised it sure made the transition easier. The lfs supplier was from FL.


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## barakainus (Jun 11, 2009)

Come in few days. They might be just really stuff with food. Mine do it sometimes - with black worms or with live brine shrimps.

On the other hand, buy only healthy, even more expensive fish. I bought some at good lfs = all survived and looked great. Expensive. Then some it Petsmart for 1/4 of the price = all died. Then some tank bred for 1/3 of the price = about 1/5 died and they are still not as pretty as the first ones from lfs.


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## OVT (Aug 26, 2010)

I waited for 10 days and came back to look at them again. I ended up buying 11 3 days ago. Contrary to my prior experience with cardinals, all are alive and eating. What looked like lumps to me the first time, turned out to be their stuffed bellies. They still don't look to me as bright as wild-caught, but I'm going to give them some time. At least they are alive and schooling.


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## Aquaticz (May 22, 2009)

I put in an order for 60 of them.It is best with this fish to slowly acclimate them- slower than any fish I've ever had.
I doit in the course of 3 hours. Every 15 minutes I'd add 10 ml of tank water to holding container. The holding container starte off with only the water the fish came in. They are sensitive to PH as well so I use a meterto match PH values. 
hth....... BTW I gassed the ones I had for some time- C02 went to high - my foolish mistake.


whoops gotta go & pour out over 500 yds of concrete this AM 

Have a great day - I am planning on it


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