Loss Of All My Fish

[Paul1969]

Evening,
 
I have an Askoll Pure 94Ltr tropical fish tank, this tank is established and 9 months old, it  contained a 6 month old Bristlenose Plec,4 neon Tetra, 2 Bronze Cory, 2 Bitia Lohachata, a male Gourami and 2 females with 5 Hakari Danio. There were also a few cleaning snails in the tank along with 4 little otto cleaning fish.
 
Everything has been fine, good community tank with no issues what so ever, my water checks fine, I would take some water to my local aquatic centre  every month to have them double check it as and when i visited, again all spot on, no issues. Anyway, I did a water change yesterday, it was one of those where i took everything out, cleaned ornaments with a toothbrush (not my one) in old tank water, cleaned the 3 sponges in the media tray along with the filter fan and pipe, all this was cleaned in the same water whilst leaving the good bacteria on the media inside the 3 cartridges situated at the top of the Askoll unit.
 
I did a 20 ltr (approx) water change, having treated the two buckets of water some 12hrs prior with aqua +and got the buckets to same temp as tank water (via spare heater i have for this purpose), I then replaced some of the ornaments as i like to change it around, placed rocks around the Air stone and had an air curtain to back of the tank. I then started everything back up and all was great, no issues.
 
That evening, spotted something was not right, you get to know your fish and their behaviour, they were not that interested in the food I had placed in,  in fact after a few minutes I removed a fair amount they had left. Anyway, things got worse,  I had a sleepless night trying to work out what was going on, all the fish that could were at top of tank and around the filter system, this usually means oxygen levels are not too good (?).
 
Water checks completed and all was in order, i then started to lose fish over the course of the next few hours, some 24hrs later I have lost all apart from the two Gourami, although I am not sure they will survive, the Plec passed away a few moments ago. I have again taken the water to my local Aquatic centre, the results showed nothing to be concerned about. They did say there was an issue with humidity in tanks due to the hot weather here in the UK at the moment, as such I did purchase two larger air stones and re- placed the ones I had, (tempratures in my tank, had been between 27 & 32, I had put a fan on the aquarium when it was too hot to help keep it cool, but this weekend has been rather cool anyway to be honest).
 
I am really sorry for this being so long, but I will be wanting to re-stock / re-do my tank at some point and would like to learn from any errors I may have made so that I do not place another load of fish in this situation, So, my question is and I know it is a WIDE OPEN one, -------
 
Has anybody else had the same thing?, did they find out the cause ? ( i understand there could me many various ones) as from what I can see I have done everything as I should.
 
It is along shot, but always worth asking these things or you will never know.
 
Many thanks for reading and hope you managed to stay awake !!.
 
Kind Regards
 
 

 

[MBOU]

Just wanted to acknowledge your post though really, nothing is jumping out at me...
 
I don't suppose you have any exact test readings to hand?
 
To me, this happening after a water change and the symptoms being indicative of a water problem.... I would say that something has changed in the tank, maybe nothing like high ammonia or nitrite... but it could be a fluctuation in the ph or hardness of the water... or your water suppliers might have added different levels of chemicals to the water.
 
The trouble with using tap water is that you are at the mercy of the water board...
 
I would get the test results for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, ph and if possibly, gh and kh too and share them here, if possible, get the LFS to retest and write down the results (they wont mind if you ask them to record the results and if they do, they aren't a LFS worth using!) maybe with the results... we can come up with something...

That said.... excess movement from too many airstones can cause fish as many problems as lack of oxygen. It puts a lot of movement and vibrations through the water and can be stressful if they cant get right away from air stones.
 
I would also, as a matter of course.. be doing daily 20L water changes for a couple of days. Personally, I would also use a biological supplement... might not do much... but it certainly wont hurt to add it! Something like the Evolution Aqua 'Pure' balls work well just as a booster rather than trying to fix massive problems.... or Bactuur Gel...  or API Quick Start. Cycle used to be good until they changed the formula, now, to get the old (good style) Cycle, it would be under the brand name AquaCare Biological Filter Supplement (or something like that). Any of those... doesn't hurt to add..
 
Would also be considering any toxins that might have entered tank... because we consider the dangers of aerosols near the tank whether room sprays, pest sprays, polish or cleaning products... even oil burners etc... but could any of these products have been used in the same room as the buckets of water you used?

 

[Californialivin]

Reverse osmosis water? Tap? Distilled? I agree if amonia nitrate and nitrite are all in limits then it had to be hardness, ph, or some type of sickness that just happened to occur at the same time frame?

 

[Paul1969]

MBOU,
 
Many thanks for the quick response, the original water that may have created this issue has now been poured away, I have added / re-placed 10 ltrs, done another test to which the PH was a little higher, but not by much, i do not have exact figures i am affraid and may not have time to get back to the aquatic store until the end of the week.
 
 
Californialivin,
 
I agree, as struggling to think what else it may be, i guess purchasing water from my Aquatic shop in the future may be the way forward as I do not want to go though this again any time soon!.

 

[MBOU]

To be fair, the Aqua+ you are using works instantly and so there is no need to leave the water standing, that is generally a left over concept from a point where people weren't using dechlorinators as the chlorine does eventually evaporate? But these days that is irrelevant as the chloramines and metals also present in the water will still be there.
 
If you need to warm up the water, add a little bit of boiled water just until the water feels a similar temperature to the tank and add it right away, much slimmer chance of cross contamination and far less hassle!
 
I would still carry on doing small water changes for the next few days and 'wait and see' really.

 

[Paul1969]

Many thanks MBOU, don't think i will have the last two for much longer, but will do another part water change in the morning if I can just add the Aqua + and then use it straight away, Just annoying not knowing what the cause is, but these things happen.  ;-(

 

[MBOU]

Might be worth checking around the house to see if anyone else might have used chemicals in the room, it only takes the smallest amount and can be the weirdest of things.
 
Most common I have seen recently:
 
1- Furniture Polish, someone polished their tank to remove dust.... cased similar symptoms and fish deaths..
2- Incense burner near the tank...
3- Fly spray (was used down other end of the room but still was the only direct link between anything and the fish all dying)
4- Cats with a flea treatment on were sitting on top of the fish tank...

 

[Paul1969]

MBOU,
 
I will look in to this, obviously house hold goods are used such as polish, glass cleaner (not directly to do with the tank), although i have sprayed some on some kitchen towel in the past to clean the glass of the tank (hood always down and away from tank) and have never had any issues.  Is something else to consider though, so thank you for that, very much appreciated and at this time is more likely than anything else that has come up from friends / Aquatic centre.
 
The idea of the thread was to get ideas so that I can prevent this occurring in the future and take reasonable measures.
 
Many thanks again, at this time It could be to do with hous hold cleaning products!.

 

[coolie]

Or residual house hold chemicals in the bucket. Always keep a separate fish bucket.

 

[Paul1969]

I have three buckets which are for Fish Tank use only.