can tetras get bound up from eating too many frozen brine?

[bettaMagenta]

Lost my top male today, the one that was always dancing - he had a pretty puffed out belly when I found him. He was usually the one hogging the frozen brine shrimp cubes, sometimes eating a huge chunk at once... half a cube, no joke. Otherwise, he looked amazing, nearly 4" long, lots of color, and those extended fins... my best Denison did the same thing just a week ago in a different tank, so I'm wondering if it's the dominant fish eating too much at once. I'm trying to space it out, a couple cubes per tank every other day, so everyone gets a shot at some frozen shrimp... maybe 2 days in a row sometimes. Thoughts on this?

[fineman]

I've taken to dissolving a bit of the cube in some tank water, then using an eyedropper to feed the shrimp - gives me more control over how much they're getting and where it's going. Don't overfeed brine shrimp, it's easy to do.

How many fish are in the tank, and what types are they? I'm curious, since you're saying the dominant ones might be eating too much. I try to limit the brine shrimp to an occasional treat - pellets or flakes are generally more balanced, you know?

[bettaMagenta]

I've got heavily stocked tanks, but they're all over-filtered and highly aerated, so that's not the issue. The problem's that big boy always ate more than his share. I'm thinking of adding a shaker jar to my aquarium tools to help distribute the food better. Those frozen shrimp cubes fall apart easily, but the frozen blood worms - which I don't feed as often - are in a big tangled ball and don't break apart as easily. I've been using a quality dry food with probiotics as my everyday food, but since I found a local source for frozen foods, I've been feeding them more often. The Denison was the dominant one in its tank, but the Tin Foils are the ones that eat the most. In the other tank, this interuptus was the dominant one. I've been trying to thaw the cubes on a tea spoon to spread them around and prevent the bigger fish from dominating the food, like that Congo Tetra always did.

[kokomo]

I've been melting the frozen cubes in a glass with some tap water, then I strain it to get rid of any excess stuff. I rinse the brine shrimp really well under the tap, then add some tank water before serving it to the fish with a big dropper.

I keep the leftover brine shrimp in the fridge, making sure they're covered in water, and I rinse them again before every use. I've found that feeding them frozen can be bad for the fish, and not rinsing them puts a lot of extra nutrients in the water.

The liquid from the brine shrimp breaks down into ammonia fast - in just a few minutes. In bigger tanks, it's not as much of a problem, but in smaller tanks, like 5 gallons or less, it can really mess up the water quality.

[bettaMagenta]

yeah, I've been dropping them in frozen, no issues with ammonia, considering the tanks are all 45 gallons or larger & super planted, they're well seasoned too.

[bettaMagenta]

I've had these 2 unexpected fish deaths in my 2 main display tanks, one's an African Tetra tank & the other's an Asian tank... both have been doing great, water-wise, since I added the dedicated RO filter for my aquarium fill water... no fish losses in either tank for over 6 months, or at least as long as I've been using the RO water... there's a variety of fish in each tank, but I'm wondering if the dominant fish eating too many frozen brine shrimp at once could be the issue...

[coltin]

Frozen brine shrimp isn't the culprit here, unless it's contaminated - that's when you risk internal bacterial infections in your fish. They'll stop eating, puff up overnight, and leave behind that nasty stringy white poop before kicking the bucket.

Brine shrimp doesn't have a hard shell, so your fish can chow down to their heart's content without worrying about it killing them. I've done this before - just drop a couple of frozen blocks into the tank and let the fish go to town. The blocks float around, breaking apart as the fish rip into them.

If you're losing fish left and right, you need to figure out what's going on. What were the symptoms, and how long did they have them?

[graye]

I agree with @coltin, I'm skeptical it's the food that's the issue here. It's time to dig deeper, become a bit of a detective and try to identify a pattern or cause behind these losses. What were the symptoms, if any, and how long did the fish show them before passing?

[latelin]

I always thaw frozen food in a small container, like an egg cup, filled with tank water. It's just a precaution, but I can envision a scenario where a fish swallows a frozen piece, and it causes damage to its throat or intestine, maybe even something like frostbite. Tropical fish aren't exactly equipped to handle this kind of thing - their systems aren't designed for it, and let's be honest, they're not exactly known for their intelligence or ability to follow 'best practices'.

[bettaMagenta]

I've started a new way of prepping the frozen brine shrimp for my tanks. I grab a small bottle, add an ounce of hot RO water from my kitchen unit, then toss in 2-3 frozen cubes. I cap it and give it a good shake, letting it sit for 10-15 minutes, giving it a few intermittent shakes along the way. This really disperses the shrimp nicely, so everyone gets a fair share. By using just a small amount of RO water, I can split the shrimp between a few tanks without mixing their water. My kitchen RO unit only does hot or cold, so I've been using hot, but I'm sure cold would work just as well - the frozen cubes chill the water right down, and they'd likely melt in cold water in the 10-15 minutes before feeding time. Since I started doing it this way, I haven't had any more unexplained deaths.