Nearly Dead Shoal

[Sweeden]

Well i've been at university for 2 weeks due to lab work needed to be done.

I asked my mum to feed the fish appropiately and she did everything fine, then last week she rang to say all my fish were dead and that my tank light wouldn't come on and filter wasn't working and thus stunk!!!

So i asked if she'd do a water change everyday alteranting between 25% and 50% with this being done tank was reasonable when i got back today.

So had a quick look before i started and there was some form of fine white algae growing on the tank bed and all plants had died.

Here's what i did:

1. removed all plants
2. put fish into spare fish bowl
3. removed filter sponge and washed in tank
4. removed 75% of water and netted all other floating debris
5. then stirred up stones to release any excess and removed debris with net
6. then refilled the tank
7. heres my before and after results

pH - 6.6 >>> 7.6+
Ammonia - 0ppm >>> 2ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm >>> 0ppm
Nitrate - 80-160ppm >>> 0ppm

Is this ok???

 

[always4lora]

get a new liquid test kit those results are wrong;

Ammonia should generally go down after a water change but you should not have any present at all as it's dangerous to the fish.
Nitrite is good and should be 0
Nitrate at 0 definatly points to a problem with the test kit, not many people get no nitrate's out of the tap!

 

[Sweeden]

get a new liquid test kit those results are wrong;

Ammonia should generally go down after a water change but you should not have any present at all as it's dangerous to the fish.
Nitrite is good and should be 0
Nitrate at 0 definatly points to a problem with the test kit, not many people get no nitrate's out of the tap!

Right just tested again
pH - 6.0
Ammonia - 1ppm
Nitrite - 0.25ppm
Nitrate - 0-5ppm

What should i do?

 

[anon02]

In your position I would repair/replace the filter,get the pH up to about 8.0/8.2 and fishless cycle till the filter is processing 5ppm ammonia in 12 hours

 

[Sweeden]

In your position I would repair/replace the filter,get the pH up to about 8.0/8.2 and fishless cycle till the filter is processing 5ppm ammonia in 12 hours

Where am i going to put the fish in the mean time? i dont have a spare tank filter? and the filter is working fine now ive fixed everything (It had shorted out due to loose wire)

 

[karin]

The confusion is that you said all the fish were dead and then there were some fish in a bowl. Looks to me like you had a filter fail and your mother did not notice until it was too late. Hopefully your filter still has a bit of the bacteria and the colonies just need to be nursed back. This explains the bacterial bloom that seems like white slim, fish death from nitrite and ammonia poisoning and the smell.

So, if you trust the filter. You are now doing a "fish-in cycle". Go to the New Freshwater tank section, click on beginner's resources and read about how to do that. Basically you are going to be testing your water everyday and doing 50-80% water changes every day until your water stats read a consistent zero for ammonia and zero for nitrite. For now don't bother testing the nitrate.

Good luck. It is a pain but I had this happen and it bounced back quickly.

 

[Sweeden]

The confusion is that you said all the fish were dead and then there were some fish in a bowl. Looks to me like you had a filter fail and your mother did not notice until it was too late. Hopefully your filter still has a bit of the bacteria and the colonies just need to be nursed back. This explains the bacterial bloom that seems like white slim, fish death from nitrite and ammonia poisoning and the smell.

So, if you trust the filter. You are now doing a "fish-in cycle". Go to the New Freshwater tank section, click on beginner's resources and read about how to do that. Basically you are going to be testing your water everyday and doing 50-80% water changes every day until your water stats read a consistent zero for ammonia and zero for nitrite. For now don't bother testing the nitrate.

Good luck. It is a pain but I had this happen and it bounced back quickly.

Yeah i trust the filter, basically just blew fuse in plug and needed sorting i did all that yesterday with a large water change. i'll do another water change later tonight as well then.

Just to update fish seem to be ok and have gained all there colour back and are now back to there royal blue colour instead of colourless

 

[twodoctors]

The confusion is that you said all the fish were dead and then there were some fish in a bowl. Looks to me like you had a filter fail and your mother did not notice until it was too late. Hopefully your filter still has a bit of the bacteria and the colonies just need to be nursed back. This explains the bacterial bloom that seems like white slim, fish death from nitrite and ammonia poisoning and the smell.

So, if you trust the filter. You are now doing a "fish-in cycle". Go to the New Freshwater tank section, click on beginner's resources and read about how to do that. Basically you are going to be testing your water everyday and doing 50-80% water changes every day until your water stats read a consistent zero for ammonia and zero for nitrite. For now don't bother testing the nitrate.

Good luck. It is a pain but I had this happen and it bounced back quickly.

Yeah i trust the filter, basically just blew fuse in plug and needed sorting i did all that yesterday with a large water change. i'll do another water change later tonight as well then.

Just to update fish seem to be ok and have gained all there colour back and are now back to there royal blue colour instead of colourless

Do the water change sooner. Ammonia at 1mg/l is rather high. Personally I wouldn't want it any higher than 0.25, which is still very high. If I were you i would do a 75% change now, which in theory will bring the ammonia down to 0.25. Then another big water change tomorrow., aiming to bring bother ammonia and nitrite to 0.125 or less.

The "white algae" might be planaria. I had it recently. In any case it's a matter of keeping the fishes alive while you fix the tank.

Good luck.

Adrian

 

[Sweeden]

Quick Update:
I'm now back to 0 ammonia and nitrite with increasing levels of nitrate so will be doing final water change tomorrow morning