2nd Tank. All Fish Dead

[Queen Bee]

I've just lost my 2nd tank full of fish in 5 days!!

This one is a 29 gallon with total 10 fish. Guppies, platys, swordtails, dwarf gourami and a snail.

I've done the same water changes as I have for the last 2 months. Filter and air sponge filter working properly, and not clogged. Heater is constant at 24. Tank has been running for 5 - 6 weeks.

I do a weekly water change of 25%. I use water conditioner all the time, once in a while I use waste control. I didn't use the waste control this time.

Readings are nitrate, nitrite at 0. Ammonia is between 0 & .25. Ph is at 6. (My tap water reads 7ph)

2 days previous, one of the platy was hiding in plants (All fake plants) and not coming out. Thought maybe having fry.

Yesterday at 10:30am I did water change as usual and shortly after I noticed all the fish hanging out at the surface of the water all together facing the same direction. This was really weird, my fish never did that before. I kept an eye and they did that all day. No panting or gulping at the surface. Just motionless.

Around 10:00 pm the snail died and was floating at the top. I removed it and checked the ammonia again. Read slightly darker than 0, but not dark enough for .25.

Around 11:00 pm some of the fish would venture to the bottom of tank and swim around, then dart back to the surface. Still floating peaceful at the top. I did notice that the top of the water in the tank was retaining bubbles. There is also a thin line of bubbles around the sides of the tank at the top. I took a bucket and skimmed the top of the water and removed it.

10:00 am this morning all fish dead. No bad foul smell. Fish have started to grow the white film on them.

No new fish have been added for 3 weeks. Buckets are only for fish, and never have had soap in them. The only thing I changed this time, I added 2 capful of water conditioner instead of 3.

Bottle calls for 1/2 capful per bucket. After testing it I discovered that I still had ammonia readings. I uped it to 3 capfuls to get rid of ammonia reading. Been doing this for a month now and since that, noticed that ph dropped from 8 to barely 6. That is why I cut it to 2 capfuls instead.

Any idea of what happened here? In total shock and really pretty sad right now!

 

[BigIan]

how did you cycle the tank? and also what sort of filter do you have??

he ammonia makes me think that your tank is either not cycled or is experiencing a mini cycle.
the reson your fish were at the top of the water could be that they were having trouble breathing because they have trouble breathing because of the ammonia

 

[Queen Bee]

Cycling the tank was a hard and long process. I transplanted the stones from my original tank to the larger one. I also used the air sponge filter from the original tank to the larger one. I did go through cycling with fish in the tank. I am also running an aqua clear filter rated for a 30Gallon. (My tank is 29Gallons). Both filters are constantly running. The fish in the new tank came from the small tank after I realized that I had too many fish in the small one to cycle properly. this tank has been up and running since the last couple of days of July or the first couple in August.

I removed everything from the tank, and did a 25% water change this afternoon. Just got home from work 1:00 am and tested the ammonia level. Reads 0. I did notice some weird stuff clinging to some of the stones at the bottom. Could be good stuff though. No real colour to it, maybe a tinge of green. Looks like the beginning of the stuff I see at the lfs in their mature tanks. (I was always disgusted by the tank conditions until I found out that you need that growth and bacteria)

Did notice also water is cloudy. Was always crystle clear in the past.

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

At this point, with no fish and no source of ammonia, your filter will unfortunately become uncycled as the filter bacteria won't have a source of "food".

It seems strange that you would have a nitrate reading of 0. It's nearly impossible in a cycled tank (unless there are a lot of live plants to suck it all up). Nitrate tests are finicky, and are the least likely to be accurate.

 

[LauraFrog]

Cloudy water and bubbles. There we go, we have it now.

Bubbles appear at the surface of the water because there is little oxygen in it - therefore often seen in uncycled, overstocked, unfiltered or dirty tanks, or tanks containing messy creatures (MY TADPOLES in summer.) Your water was cloudy. What I'd suggest is that your tank has, for some reason and probably not your fault, suffered a bacterial bloom. The bacteria have removed so much oxygen from the water that the fish could not breathe - hence the hanging at the surface.

 

[Queen Bee]

bacteria bloom. Sounds like that could be it. After the deaths, I removed all plants and ornaments. Under one of my castles, there is a brownish algae looking stuff on the rocks. This is only in the area where my large castle was. (Been in tank since the inital set up)

I cleaned the tank 20% water change. Algae stuff is still there. White stuff was floating in the water (Probably from the decaying fish). The bubbles disappeared though.

Last night (1:00 am) I used a sponge and wiped down the sides of the tank. More white stuff started floating through the tank. This seems to have disappeared today (noon). Water still cloudy a bit, algae looking stuff still there, no bubbles at the top.

Where do I go from here? Tank still running. Only rocks and main equiptment still in tank. All plants and ornaments are out of it. Going to do a water change to get rid of algae. What do I have to do to make the tank ready for new fish??

One thing still puzzles me. The fish were fine before I did the water change. Only after the change did they start acting weird and hanging out at the top. Shouldn't the water change have given them better water and not made it more toxic? OR I did more my large cave in the tank to clean underneath. (Also in tank since inital setup) Did this stir up too much bacteria? Was very dirty underneath. Never thought about moving it before.

What is my next move?

 

[rabbut]

A large amount of dirt being stired up can caurse a small ammonia spike, which could then in turn have triggered the afore-mentioned bacterial bloom, so that could be the possible chain of events, but if the tank has only been running for a month or two with 10 fish and the tank is 29g, I'd say that is unlikely....

Have you considered a contaminated source of replacement water? I assume the water from the tap still looks, smells and tastes normal?

The reduced ammont of dechlorinator could also have contributed, as most use only a light dose. If your water supply uses more than adverage chlorine/chloramine or has high ammounts of heavy metals in it, this could be the issue.

At this point, you need to add an ammonia source to keep the filters going, be it fishfood or bottled ammonia (preferable) or something else.... Add as much food as you would add for the fish if you go down that route, or 5ppm of ammonia if you go down the bottled route

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Queen Bee]

Water out of the tap reads a 1 when I test it for ammonia. Haven't noticed anything different about the water. Can't get to lfs today so I will add some fish food to keep good bacteria going.

How long should I wait before adding a fish to the tank? Bits of white stuff still here and there when I move the gravel around.

 

[OldMan47]

Have you had a lot of rain lately as we have here? If your water department is using lake or river water they may be fighting unusual condtions in the water plant and adding more chlorine than usual to "make sure" the water is safe for people. A nearby town where I know some fish keepers had this going on last week and it was bad enough they warned me about it at a club fish auction. The trouble is that if you don't know it's happening, you can't allow for it by waiting a few days to do your water change or by adding more dechlorinator to compensate. The warning I was getting from the club members was to not even try to do a water change. I think we get about the same weather as you a day or two sooner so it is a possibility.

 

[Queen Bee]

Have you had a lot of rain lately as we have here? If your water department is using lake or river water they may be fighting unusual condtions in the water plant and adding more chlorine than usual to "make sure" the water is safe for people. A nearby town where I know some fish keepers had this going on last week and it was bad enough they warned me about it at a club fish auction. The trouble is that if you don't know it's happening, you can't allow for it by waiting a few days to do your water change or by adding more dechlorinator to compensate. The warning I was getting from the club members was to not even try to do a water change. I think we get about the same weather as you a day or two sooner so it is a possibility.

We did get quite a heavy rain a few days before I did the water change. My boyfriend's dad told us that at the beginning or end of every month the town puts extra dosages into the water. Coupled with the heavy rain....

I'm really trying to get to the bottom of this, so not to lose a tank of fish again. Thank you for replying

 

[Queen Bee]

I am going to the lfs today. The tank water is clear again. I seemed to have filtered out the white film left behind.

Do you think it is safe to add a couple of fish? I don't want to leave it empty too long. I was thinking platys as they are fairly hardy fish.

 

[Tolak]

Have you had a lot of rain lately as we have here? If your water department is using lake or river water they may be fighting unusual condtions in the water plant and adding more chlorine than usual to "make sure" the water is safe for people. A nearby town where I know some fish keepers had this going on last week and it was bad enough they warned me about it at a club fish auction. The trouble is that if you don't know it's happening, you can't allow for it by waiting a few days to do your water change or by adding more dechlorinator to compensate. The warning I was getting from the club members was to not even try to do a water change. I think we get about the same weather as you a day or two sooner so it is a possibility.

This is one of the first things I look at when there is an odd situation with an aquarium, seemingly out of the blue. Learn as much as you can about your water supplier, what they do, when, and why. For public safety reasons they will at times totally hose the water with disinfectants. Never trust your water supplier when it concerns aquatics, their concerned about the health & safety of humans.

You will get an ammonia reading after using dechlorinator if your water supplier uses chloramine & you are using a single reagent Nessler test. This sort of test will not discriminate between ammonia & ammonium, which is what ammonia gets converted to when using water conditioners/dechlorinators that claim to neutralize/remove ammonia. A two reagent Salicylate test will discriminate ammonia from ammonium. Ammonium is harmless to fish at levels found in an aquarium, and treated the same as ammonia by your bio filtration. Chloramine is a combination of chlorine & ammonia, much more stable than chlorine, and is probably where you are getting the ammonia reading out of your tap.

We got drenched by the remnants of hurricane Gustav earlier in the week, tap water smelled like a swimming pool for a couple of days after that. I have hatching & fry tanks that have to have water changes, I triple or more the dechlorinator (Prime) and cross my fingers, it usually works out.

A tank with cycling problems will often have pH swings. Seems like you are getting a handle on it, I think a couple of platys would be fine for getting a 29 going again.

 

[Queen Bee]

I just researched my water supplier and sent them an e-mail for more info. Kind of grossed out. Our water comes from Lake Ontario. I've seen that water and it is disgusting. Always a lot of closed beaches in Toronto due to high bacteria levels.

They do add chorine 2X during process and ammonia at the end of the process. Trying to find out about choramine though.

Almost sorry I looked that up. They must add a lot to the lake water to make it safe. I will get a kit to test difference between the two. (And buy platys today needed confirmation on that first)

 

[rabbut]

I'd ramp up your dechlorinator doses first. It looks from that reply, that a water supply issue is at fault TBH. Do as Tolak does and tripple dose, as it is hard to overdose on dechlor. Someone on here mentioned a chat with a sales rep for API I think it was, where the rep stated that they tested it at 50X the recomended dose, and found that it did no obvious harm. This is re-assuring as I get throgh a bottle of dechlor that will treat 200,000g at work in about a month when I use mebe 10,000g, so evidently I overdose it considerably...... No problems as yet though

If the tank was cycled before the crash, and you have been adding food daily since, and the ammonia is zero now, after a 50-75% waterchange and gravel vac, I'd say you're ready for your platies Just overdose your dechlorinator in the replacement water

What filter media do you have? It's very unusual to have zeros for all ammonia, nitrite and nitrate when you have fish in the tank.... No Zeolite in there I hope If so, wip it out and cycle the tank with either food or liquid ammonia before you get your fish, as it will be a bind later on...

Also, what test kit do you use? (brand and liquid/strip?)

HTH
Rabbut

 

[Tolak]

I just researched my water supplier and sent them an e-mail for more info. Kind of grossed out. Our water comes from Lake Ontario. I've seen that water and it is disgusting. Always a lot of closed beaches in Toronto due to high bacteria levels.

My water comes from Lake Michigan, the south end. Steel mills discharge waste into the water down here, sewage gets discharged, and we have this river that used to run into the lake, that they reversed 100 odd years ago. Sewage, as well as waste from all sorts of industries is and has been dumped into this river.

So a nice storm comes through town, churns up the bottom of the lake, making the water nasty. It rains a lot, and the open the locks to the river, letting it flow into the lake once again. This back washes all sorts of nasties into the lake. Beaches are usually closes after this for a couple of days, disinfectants are used heavily, and the water is very safe for human consumption, but must be used with caution in aquariums.

The ammonia they use at the end may be combining with chlorine in the process to give you chloramine.