All Fish Have Died Cos Of Cloudy Water

[charlton]

Best to list eveythiong what was in the tank when it went cloudy and started to smell.
From substate to ornaments.
Any roads works being done down your road.
Do you use tap water or rain water for water changes.
Something altered your ph.
What sealent did you use to seal the background.
Do you think its leaking toxins into the water.
Cement can make a tank go cloudy if its not set properly.
Did you let the cement mature and harden before you started to seal it.

thanks for all your ideas so far, here's everything else you've just asked for...... and you might of just cracked what might of caused it !!

In the tank when i left it all ok last week was a selection of fake plants, some bogwood, argos playsand and 8 ruby tetras, 3 burma loaches 7 cory julli's (4 survived) 2 opaline gourami's (also survived), its been the same in the tank for over 10 months. I use tap water with tetra aquasafe to remove harmfull stuff, But last week now you've mentioned it there was road works going on at the top of my road, not sure what they were doing though !!! As mentioned earlier the back ground was a project over a couple of months and the cement had a few week to cure and i'm sure it must of been sealed propery because i gave it about 5 coats. Finally the silicon i used was purchased from my lfs, not sure of the name now but it did specifically say for use in aquariums !!!

thanks once again

charlton

 

[WILDER]

Ok.
When there road works down the road its best to run the tap water awhile then double or triple dose declorinator.
Something could of been in the water supply.
Thats all I can think of really if you havent used any household chemicals near the tank or been decorating.

 

[charlton]

Ok.
When there road works down the road its best to run the tap water awhile then double or triple dose declorinator.
Something could of been in the water supply.
Thats all I can think of really if you havent used any household chemicals near the tank or been decorating.

ok thanks for the advice, learn from my mistakes i suppose

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Charlton,

I remember helping with your fishless cycle. Glad everything was going well (until now!).

Eggy smells and cloudy water point firmly towards anaerobic activity.

Attilauk makes a very good point. Ammonia doesn't smell eggy at all. However, Hydrogen Sulphide does, and this gas can form if anaerobic areas are allowed to form in your tank. Hydrogen sulphide is a deadly gas, however is detoxified immediately upon contact with oxygen (the water in your tank) so is very unlikely to have killed your fish, but would explain the eggy smell.

Also, anaerobic areas in the substrate will encourage anaerobic bacteria which will go mad for breaking down any organic waste available into ammonia faster than your beneficial bacteria can process it. This could explain the fish deaths and the cloudy water.

You may not detect the ammonia now if the beneficial bacteria in your filter have now caught up and cleared it.

How deep is your substrate and what substrate do you use?

What is your routine and method for substrate cleaning? Do you stir up the substrate?

There is an article which i wrote on bacterial blooms which may help you to understand what is going on. There is a link in my sig.

Cheers

BTT

 

[Goodygumdrops]

Sand can be pretty bad for harbouring bacteria unless it is stirred up regularly,I'm wondering if you've disturbed it when putting the background in and let loose a colony of nasties?Mibees/mibees no,but at this stage it's just chucking ideas around.

Edited cos my n has something stuck under it

 

[charlton]

Hi Charlton,

I remember helping with your fishless cycle. Glad everything was going well (until now!).

Eggy smells and cloudy water point firmly towards anaerobic activity.

Attilauk makes a very good point. Ammonia doesn't smell eggy at all. However, Hydrogen Sulphide does, and this gas can form if anaerobic areas are allowed to form in your tank. Hydrogen sulphide is a deadly gas, however is detoxified immediately upon contact with oxygen (the water in your tank) so is very unlikely to have killed your fish, but would explain the eggy smell.

Also, anaerobic areas in the substrate will encourage anaerobic bacteria which will go mad for breaking down any organic waste available into ammonia faster than your beneficial bacteria can process it. This could explain the fish deaths and the cloudy water.

You may not detect the ammonia now if the beneficial bacteria in your filter have now caught up and cleared it.

How deep is your substrate and what substrate do you use?

What is your routine and method for substrate cleaning? Do you stir up the substrate?

There is an article which i wrote on bacterial blooms which may help you to understand what is going on. There is a link in my sig.

Cheers

BTT

Hi BTT

Thanks for all your help when i was first starting out, hopefully you may be able to help once again. The substrate i use is just argos playsand which i've always used and its been fine, the way i normally clean it is to get a wooden skewer and just run it through back and forth in the sand prior to my weekly water change, but i did move quite alot of it about using my hands when i was fitting my new background. The substrate used to be between 20mm - 30mm but since putting my background in (which is thicker) the sand is obviusly even deeper. Do you think this might of caused the problem ? I'll have a read throgh the article you wrote aswell

thanks again

charlton

 

[WILDER]

Do you have any black patches that smell bad on your sand.

 

[charlton]

Do you have any black patches that smell bad on your sand.

nope, just out of curiousity what might this be though ?

just for everyones information thats been following this thread and trying to help out, i've been doing 25% water changes twice a day to clear the water and it's alot clearer now, probably do the same tommorrow and the fish that survived originally seem still to be doing fine !!!

cheers

charlton

 

[Goodygumdrops]

Do you have any black patches that smell bad on your sand.

These are pockets of anaerobic bacteria,as I previously mentioned,sand can be bad for this,basically the small grains are great for containing bacteria and not letting it back out,these can then multiply into nice big colonies,which you may have disturbed and released into the water column when adding your background.
But then again,it may not have been this,as you said that you stir your sand regularly.The eggy smell does suggest this though.

 

[smegforbrains]

I take it when you siliconed the background in place, the fish were still in the tank?


It's more than likely they have been poisoned by the chemicals in the silicone being released during the curing process.


Ideally, the tank should have been stripped 100% before siliconing and left for at least 72 hours, or until the vinegar smell has disappeared.

 

[charlton]

I take it when you siliconed the background in place, the fish were still in the tank?


It's more than likely they have been poisoned by the chemicals in the silicone being released during the curing process.


Ideally, the tank should have been stripped 100% before siliconing and left for at least 72 hours, or until the vinegar smell has disappeared.

yes the fish were still in the tank, i just lowered the water level for about a day and a half while it cured. I did ask my lfs where i bought the silicon from and they said it would be fine, to be fair it didn't say anything on the instruction though.

I've just re - checked my water stats aswell though and they seemd fine a couple of days ago but now my nitrite and ammo levels are both up to 0.5, any ideas why this may be ?

I'm starting to think about my new filter, i bought it about 3 months ago and had it running alongside my jewel filter until i put in my new background when i took the jewel out, the new filter was a tetratec ex 700, is it possible the filter media was put in the wrong way round and this wasn't noticed until i took out the old filter !!

cheers

charlton

 

[DarkEntity]

Argos playsand....ive had nothing but problems with it in the past, i refuse to use it now for the very reason mentioned that it seems to love harbouring anearobic pockets..

I think id go with the save what you can strip tank down and start again route, get filter media from someone local you trust, clean the tank, make sure the background is good etc...., and dont use Argos playsand, its cheap for a reason, Caribsea Moonsand (black) is great stuff i now swear by it, wont use anything else in my tanks, ive had no issues with it at all.

 

[backtotropical]

Did you get this sorted out, mate?

 

[charlton]

Did you get this sorted out, mate?

yes i did thanks mate, after numerous water changes and constant checking of water stats its all back to normal now. I went out and slowly restocked all my fish

2 x opaline gourami
6 x cory juliis
1 x clown loach
2 x kribensis
and a school of 12 neon tetras

only problem now is one of the kribs is very territorial, so i'm considering taking it back to my lfs, but other than that its looking nice again !!!

cheers

charlton