All Our Fish Suddenly Flicking

[Richie Hell]

All different tanks, our 20 gallon has water of 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 40ppm nitrate, ph 7.
Our other tank has water of 0 ammonia, nitrite0, nitrate 10ppm, ph 7
Our smaller betta tank for Khan 0 ammonia, nitrate 10ppm, ph 7, water change since last nitrite test, but some was present.


All of a sudden fishes in all three tanks have been flicking. Corys in our 20 gallon are flicking, no signs of anything wrong, corys in our other tank are flicking manically but no sign of anything physically wrong.

Our betta Khan is going round like a loon, rubbing himself on everyything, mainly his left side.

We just dont know what to do. There are no physical signs, and its come on in the last day or so.

2 tanks its been since the last water change (yesterday) and anotehr tank has had no water changes recently and theyve just started up.


This started yesterday.
Would a change of dechlorinator do this and should we add carbon to the filter?

And as a addition, would any household products added to the tank do this? There is suspicion of foul play in our house currently and we want to rule out anyone interfering with the tanks.

 

[The-Wolf]

do all the tanks have air pumped into them via air pumps?
have you added any plug in air fresheners to the room recently?

I'm thinking of some kind of air polutant has got into the water.

 

[smmetz]

Very odd that all three tanks have the same problem at the same time. The only possiblities that come to mind are if you cross-contaminated the tanks while cleaning them. Like if you moved stuff around in one tank, then put your hands in the next tank to do stuff without rinsing your hands first.

Also, like you said, if someone sprayed a bunch of stuff in the room where they are, it could have gotten into all the tanks. Examples might be air freshener, hair spray, pesticides, etc.

If you suspect is is foul play or some kind of spray, I would do a water change and then put new carbon in the filters. Throw that carbon out after a day or two then. By that time it will have absorbed about as much as it's going to of any chemicals in the tank.

 

[Richie Hell]

do all the tanks have air pumped into them via air pumps?
have you added any plug in air fresheners to the room recently?

I'm thinking of some kind of air polutant has got into the water.

One has an air pump connected, but the others don't.

I thought maybe some sort of contaminant. We don't use air fresheners*, just the usual deodorants and hair stuff, though we usually keep them away from the tanks. Accidents do happen though. Have added carbon to one tank, will do the other two tomorrow when I've been out to get some.

My other thought was cross contamination as I must admit I've been a bit lax and used the same net on all three tanks. We bought some new Corys recently and one has some tail fin missing. No obvious signs of any illness such as finrot, but maybe some sort of infection or parasite came in and got spread round.

Right now we'll treat it as a contamination and monitor the fish. Thanks for the help, much appreciated

*that said, our housemate smells really bad so we did spray his room with air freshener recently. Maybe he retaliated and did ours