New Tank Setup - All 10 Goldfish Dead In 2 Hours Posted: Aug 23, 2006

[f1shfreak]

Last night I added water and gold fish to tank and they all died within 2 hours.
I bought a used 135 gallon tank and a wet/dry filter from a fish store. I built the tank into the wall in my living room. During construction of wall I had a plastic bag over the top of the tank in an attempt to limit debris from getting in. I know some debris did get in, but very little. Debris would be from drywall mud dust, wood filler dust, fumes from paint and maybe dust from cut wood. All paint has been dry for over 2 weeks. Before I added water I got a wet towel and cleaned the interior of the tank. I also bought 100 pounds of natural gravel from a fish store. I put it all in a bucket and ran a hose in it for an hour or so while stirring the rocks. I also added (I think its called) slate rocks for caves, purchased at a pond/landscaping company. I used silicon to glue caves together. I let silicon dry for 3 days before adding water. When I filled the tank up it was cloudy for a while.

Any thoughts to what could have killed the fish. Not all fished died at once. A couple died within 30 minutes and some maid it for 2 hours.

Any thoughts on what I should do next.

Thanks

 

[Mikaila31]

First you need to cycle a tank, you can read about cycling here. How big where the goldfish?

 

[corrosive]

Was the water declorinated? or just water straight from tap?! Because i doubt ammonia levels etc could have got high with that size of tank and time limit?

Also construction may have played a part in their deaths.

 

[f1shfreak]

I was using the gold fish to help cycle the tank.
I had ten 3 inch gold fish.
I have a 2 foot pacu and a sucker fish in my other 100 gallon tank.


-- If construction did play a part, what do I do? I can empty tank and refill it but will this help. The water had to be pretty bad to kill goldfish.

No, the water was not declorinated. I have never declorinated my water before.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi f1shfreak

I feel so sorry about your fish! What a terrible experience for you!

While you have probably added too many fish, too soon and do need to learn about cycling if you don't understand it already, I suspect it was some sort of contamination of the water. I would suggest taking it down, giving it a good cleaning and starting over.

Anyway, welcome to the forum. As you will learn, many of our members joined after getting off to a poor start and went on to become very successful fishkeepers, so please don't get discouraged. Soon you will be doing well too.

_____
Edit: I see you posted more information while I was typing. Since you are an experienced fish keeper already, you do know about cycling, so it was most likely some of the construction substances getting in the water.

Have you considered moving some of the filter material from your old filter to the new one? That would give you a head start with cultivating beneficial bacteria and make it easier on the next batch of fish you get. We also have a pinned topic in the Beginners section that explains how some members cycle their tank without fish, which is another option fishkeepers now have.

I hope you stay around and share your fishkeeping experiences with our other members.

 

[riverman444]

Sounds like shock, to me. Was the water cold?

 

[babybell911]

Chlorine that you find in tap water can be deadly to fish you really need to dechlorinate all water before you use it with your fish. Also it can kill beneficial bacteria too.

 

[f1shfreak]

Last night I put a bag of 4 gold fish in tank for 15 minutes, so that they could adjust to the temperature, then added them to the tank. They are still alive this morning. So the others must have went into shock from the extremely cold tap water.

Thanks for all your help.