How quick are you to replace lost fish?

[ample]

I’m not an inexperienced aquarist, but I find that fish just die sometimes. Slowly added fish to my tank a couple of months ago and all was well, but within the past week I’ve lost 3 for different reasons.

Honey gourami mysteriously turned pale and slowly declined over a couple of weeks, no external signs of disease.

One of my pseudomugil males got its jaw stuck open. Netted him and manually closed his jaw but it popped back open. Must have injured itself while chasing other fish.

Sucked up a habrosus Cory in my gravel vac during a water change yesterday without realizing and tapped the vac to shake out the obstruction. Seemed okay when I put it back in the tank but found him dead this morning. This one I feel terrible about.

Luckily I source all of my livestock locally, so it’s not difficult for me to purchase one or two fish. But I just wonder how others feel about maintaining their fish numbers and whether people feel comfortable leaving their groups small (6-7 individuals) or rush to replace lost fish.

 

[Kwyet]

I don’t ever rush because I almost always order fish online and I wait until the order is going to be large to justify the shipping. Even if that was not the case though, I wouldn’t hurry if there had been possible disease in the tank. Then it would be a treatment/ quarantine situation and I wouldn’t hurry. I would wait at least a couple of months to monitor the remaining fish.

 

[BranchScape]

I generally don’t rush to replace fish when they die, especially if the cause is unclear. I lost a Blue Leopard Angelfish in March with no obvious signs of disease—my best guess now is internal parasites—but no other fish were affected at the time and no signs of issues in the tank and that angel was fine until maybe 2 days before passing. Then I lost a CW123 cory this month, again with no clear symptoms.

Now my other Blue Leopard Angelfish is showing a long, white, stringy waste and appears thinner and more timid, so I plan to treat the tank with Fritz Para Cleanse. My two Red Devil Angels seem very healthy which is strange as they were the weaker of my 4 Angels to start.

If I had quickly replaced the earlier losses, I could have worsened a potential underlying issue. That said, for isolated easy to discern incidents like a jump or loss during a gravel vac, I may replace fish—provided I have a reliable, healthy source. Plus I know it was a specific freak incident not a issue to be fixed.

 

[ample]

These are good points. The gourami was the first to be added and I haven’t noticed any other unexplained deaths, but I’ll probably wait just in case.

 

[ElleDee]

I have never really replaced fish. I get my fish in bigger groups and when their numbers dwindle I try different fish. I may get more espei rasboras though - my original school must be getting long in the tooth (almost 6 years old now), but they have been such a charming and trouble-free species I would be sad to suddenly not have any.

I quarantine new fish for at least a month, and that has limited random deaths. If I suspected there could be a health issue at play in my display tank, I wouldn't add anything for a long time.