D:

[TylerFerretLord]

I came home from a one hour outing to by plants (i think it's called anachonasia, and some weird looking thing called 'banana plant and a plant called 'hedge plant') and when I came back everything but my 1 male mollie and the shrimp were dead.

They were all fine before! Swimming, plecs were doing their thing, everyone was fine.

I did an emergency water test, everything was at zero, then did a 100% water change.

I haven't done anything new, no new fish, plants, food. Nothing out of the ordinary was in it, I haven't sprayed anything, and no one else was home.

Any clue why they died?

DEAD:
2 iridescent sharks(planning on giving away when too big)
2 plecs
1 mollies
2 barbs
1 horsefaced loach

PS:

I haven't cycled yet, for fear of a sudden and lethal ammonia spike from all my fish. Is it safe to remove my zeonite from my filter with just the one fish(and shrimp)?

I think that, while this was horrible, I have a chance to cycle. I'm going to take it.

PPS:

Should I pick up two girls for the mollie? I don't want him sad. And it would make cycling easier.

 

[*Fishkies*]

What was the temperature in your tank?
What kind of filter did you have running?

 

[TylerFerretLord]

Temp was 78, I have three filters. Your average over the side, a fluval, and an UGF.

They're all running fine.

 

[TylerFerretLord]

Well, I ran out and got a few fish.

Mollie is fine.

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

From what I understand...Zeolite will not prevent your tank from cycling...it will just make the process much much slower. The nitrifying bacteria will simply start living on the Zeolite (which will eventually lose it's effectiveness btw).

You are in a tough spot at the moment because:
1) You don't know what caused the death of the other fish. If it was a bacterial infection it might still be present in your tank.
2) If you still have the Zeolite in the filter, and it's absorption capabilities are exhausted before the tank cycles you may be facing another fish kill off. Also, please keep in mind that if you have hard water with a high calcium content the Zeolite may become exhausted more rapidly than for those with "softer" water.

 

[TylerFerretLord]

From what I understand...Zeolite will not prevent your tank from cycling...it will just make the process much much slower. The nitrifying bacteria will simply start living on the Zeolite (which will eventually lose it's effectiveness btw).

You are in a tough spot at the moment because:
1) You don't know what caused the death of the other fish. If it was a bacterial infection it might still be present in your tank.
2) If you still have the Zeolite in the filter, and it's absorption capabilities are exhausted before the tank cycles you may be facing another fish kill off. Also, please keep in mind that if you have hard water with a high calcium content the Zeolite may become exhausted more rapidly than for those with "softer" water.

great, I'll put it back in then.

I would prefer a slow cycle than the chance of one that will kill my fish.

My water is soft and slightly acidic. LFS said that when I first brought it in.

I guess my plan is to have an extremely slow cycle. I'll keep two packets of zeolite and replace one every month.

About the bacteria, why would one fish be completely fine when the others died in an hour? Are there even things that kill that fast?

We can rule out:

Poison(fish still alive)
ich, velvet, anything that has visible symptoms
Dropsy

I miss my sharks.

 

[Lynda B]

You had an uncycled tank. Fish die in an uncycled tank.

Even though you said "I'm not ready to cycle yet".... by putting fish in the tank, you were cycling.

What exactly were/are your numbers:

pH:
Ammonia:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:

 

[Amunet]

It is strange though that all of those fish would die so suddenly.
Are you positive nothing got into the tank?

 

[TylerFerretLord]

B)-->QUOTE(Lynda B @ Jul 13 2007, 03:17 PM) [snapback]1690008[/snapback]
You had an uncycled tank. Fish die in an uncycled tank.

Even though you said "I'm not ready to cycle yet".... by putting fish in the tank, you were cycling.

What exactly were/are your numbers:

pH:
Ammonia:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:[/quote]
I said everything was 0, ph is always 6.8.

I had zeonite in. It wasn't ammonia or nitrite poisoning, fluctuating ph or anything that is caused by ammonia.

 

[TylerFerretLord]

It is strange though that all of those fish would die so suddenly.
Are you positive nothing got into the tank?

I'm absolutely certain.

We don't use air freshener, My sister uses hairspray, but only in her room and she always has her window open, and we don't use things that are in pressurized cans.

And why wouldn't it kill the 1 survivor if it was something that got into the tank? Or the shrimp? I heard shrimp are extremely sensitive to things.

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

My suggestion would be to not rely too heavily on the zeolite. If it was the holy grail in terms of safe fish keeping I think it would be recommended more often. One of the problems is that it's going to make it a lot harder for you to determine when your cycle is finished. Not to mention that when you remove it from your filter you'll be removing a large portion of the biological filter that is living on it.

Keep your bioload low, check your water params often, and good luck.

 

[Lynda B]

I said everything was 0, ph is always 6.8.

If you have a 0 ammonia and nitrite, you should have a reading for nitrate. Are you doing the readings yourself?

 

[TylerFerretLord]

My suggestion would be to not rely too heavily on the zeolite. If it was the holy grail in terms of safe fish keeping I think it would be recommended more often. One of the problems is that it's going to make it a lot harder for you to determine when your cycle is finished. Not to mention that when you remove it from your filter you'll be removing a large portion of the biological filter that is living on it.

Keep your bioload low, check your water params often, and good luck.

Thanks for the tips.

I have a packet of ceramic blocks in my filter, wouldn't most of the bacteria be on it? I could also just open the packet and put some of the zeonite in pnatyhose and slowly remove it over time, no?

 

[TylerFerretLord]

B)-->QUOTE(Lynda B @ Jul 13 2007, 03:59 PM) [snapback]1690057[/snapback]

I said everything was 0, ph is always 6.8.

If you have a 0 ammonia and nitrite, you should have a reading for nitrate. Are you doing the readings yourself?
[/quote]
Nitrate is very low. There is some, but not enough to be messured by a little color match. Definately >.50PPM.

And I have no reading for ammonia nor nitrite because I am using zeolite, it absorbs ammonia.

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

Because the Zeolite absorbs ammonia, the bacteria often have to live on the surface of it to "retrieve" it...at least that is what I understand from the articles I read about it. Yes some bacteria should still live on the other filter media...it's just hard to guess the percentages.