Lost 20 Fish (Mature Tank For 4 Years)

[fatmrak315]

ok so woke up the morning to find my 5 siamese algue eater, 1 cory, and 14 boesemani rainbow fish dead.
 
we did a water change about 8pm last night, my partner says he primed the buckets. we have two 85 litre bins and just pump the water back to the tank. the tank is 425 litres. 
 
i have test my ammonia it not good but my problem is i don't know if its down to lack of priming or because
 
our washing machine is broken so my partner was washing cloths in the bath while i was at work. the buckets sit right next to the bath when full. he lifted the cloths over the buckets so he could hang them up. my worry is if any washing powder or confiner got into the bucket.
 
1. is it more liking the fish died so fast to a) lack of priming water b) chemical from cloths
 
2. if its b) what does this mean to my other fish remaining
 
thank you in advance

 

[ncguppy830]

what are the exact parameters?

 

[fatmrak315]

its the api test kit. i have lost card, so download a picture of test card results it looks like
 
ammonia 2.0ppm
nitrite 0ppm
nitrate between 10 - 20 ppm
 
thank you for fast reply

 

[PrairieSunflower]

Whatever caused it, you need to do water changes to get that ammonia down and if anything may have contaminated the water in the tank that will help too.

 

[fatmrak315]

already doing a 80% water change. 

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

From info provided, top suspect has to be washing powder detergent has dripped into your "fish safe" buckets, if they were open topped.
 
Have you got any other safe buckets you can use now to do a ~95% water change? You need to get that ammonia reading down, regardless of the cause of all the deaths. I've no idea if adding fresh carbon would adsorb any possible clothes washing chemicals.
 
What fish have you got left?
Are they in distress?
 
It might be better to put them in a container with similar temp dechlorinated water and their filter, while you sort out the tank.

 

[fatmrak315]

sadly they are open top buckets. the next size bucket i have is a 15 litre, but only have one and i start work at 10am. 
 
i ran the showered head in the buckets for 5mins each before refilling.
 
i will get some carbon at work and cycle medium i work in a garden centre with an aquatic department.
 
keyholes gasping at top, my cories i can only see 4 and i have about 15 now, normally i can see about 10 swimming about. other than that all seem fine.
 
my main concern if it is the detergents, then the fish have already been exposed and how many more am l likely to lose.  

 

[baker360360]

Sorry to hear this. Like others said - water changes big time- I'm gonna be very careful with the things I use to change/clean my tank. Looks like an easily made mistake can have dramatic Consequences...

 

[ky*weremiej]

Gutted !!!

 

[HHH]

I dont know if this will help with detergent but throw in some avtivated carbon its known to soak up chemicals. I dont know if its works on detergent though.

 

[ech0o]

2.0 ppm of ammonia is surely the killer.   It is not unknown for well established, YEARS old tanks to crash suddenly, although I guess detergent COULD be the culprit, you would have to spill quite a fair amount of ammonia based cleaner to read 2ppm, or a TON of bleach to break through the dechlorinator, and kill all the filter bacteria.   I am guessing from your tank size that a drop or 2 of cleaner would probably not send the tank into a violent cycle...
 
Did you mess with the filter or filter pads during the tanks cleaning/water change?  Could you have maybe forgot to prime one of the pails?  You need to keep doing water changes with primed water, and really sorry to hear about all the casualties that is  awful....

 

[fatmrak315]

right managed to get aload of mature medium from work. thanks to the guys in aquatics. i have moved the fish into another tank so, i can completely strip there old one down. maybe o.t.t. but it will give me a piece of mind. always new there was a reason to have a spare tank. lol 
 
just finished moving them so will be testing every couple of hours because this is a smaller tank at 285 litres. fingers cross i will not loss anymore fish. some of the fish have been with me from the beginning.
 
thank you for all your replies guys and girls, my partner is now banned from touching anything fishy related.