Lost My Whole Tank!

[samuel]

My 18 gallon tank consisted of 4 angel fish, 2 cory's, 1 pleco, 1 spotted catfish with live plants (amazon blades and eel grass) Established for about a year. Nothing has changed recently, no additions of new fish, driftwood or anything.

One by one the fish started to die, I checked the ammonia levels after the second one died and it was somewhat high so I began to do daily water changes, I checked with my LFS and they thought I had some type of disease going on since I noticed one fish with with "eye cloud". I started using the erythromycin tables and followed the instructions for the tablets and water changes.

A week later all but the catfish died, my contant water changes obviously did not help, what caused the ammonia spike I really don't know. I am still water change and but now noticing that my water is "cloudy" and is having a hard time clearing up.

Can some one explain what I am going through?

thanx

 

[steelhealr]

It's hard to tell from your history the exact timeline, but, first off, it looks like your little 18 gallon tank was overstocked. The fish probably overwhelmed the biologic filter since you had ammonia present. As you know, ammonia is toxic. When you added antibiotics, sounds like your started to treat the 'symptoms' and NOT the problem. It is possible that the antibiotic then completely wiped our your biologic filter and then your fish died from ammonia poisoning. JMO. SH

 

[beux]

Hey, that makes sense. Especially if your tank has been established for a year - most of your fish would have grown since you first bought them and their size (and waste produce) wouldhave become more of problem over time.