Panicking A Bit...

[jojouk]

Well, I did my usual weekly water change last night. Well it was a bit over a week, but hey.

Did about 50%. Siphoned it out as usual, filled it back up using a hose pipe, as usual. Added dechlor as usual, enough for whole tank, before filling.

Turned off filter before draining tank, back on when full. Only different thing was I set the temp from the mixer tap, but the hot water ran out, so the tank temp dropped to about 16 degrees after filling, and all the water came out of my hot water supply, as it was only lukewarm to begin with. Back up to 23 degrees within 4 hours tho.

Everything was fine.

Got up this morning, and had a quick peek at the fishies as I was leaving for work, and they all appear to be at the surface of the tank. No heavy breathing as such...but just odd that all of them look like they are trying to breathe from the top of the tank.

I'm now on a train, London bound, and won't be back home till late, just can't stop thinking that they might be suffering!!

All I can think of is that something is in that water that I put in from the hot tap?

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Fingers crossed they are ok when you return home, that is one heck of a temperature drop if you were tipping in buckets (basically anything but an almost acclimitisation trickle). In that situation of running out of hot tap water, it would have been far better to either run the tank at the low level until you have hot water again (if possible), or use your kettle to boil water and add it to cold tap water to get something of a much similar temp to what the fish were in before ou started the water change.

There might not just be temperature shock at work here, depending upon your boiler type you could have added a lot more copper/heavy metals than normal. What dechlorinator do you use?

 

[jojouk]

I always just trickle it back in, it took about 45 mins to refil, about 90 ish litres.. I'm so used to just letting it fill, I just left it to get on with filling. I checked the temp at the start of the filling as the water was lukewarm, and was ok, must have gone later. I was playing on the Xbox and not paying attention...

Wish I had done a smaller water change now!!

That's the prob with external heaters I guess, needed to turn on the filter before it starts heating the water.

Plus it is freezing cold here at the moment, so the cold water from the tap was extra cold!!!

Going to be thinking about it all bloody day now!!!

 

[DevotedToDiscus]

JoJo, It is quite common for tropical fish in the wild to get big temperature drops during the wet season, and while your difference in temp was a fair chunk it is not uncommon. Your fish being at the surface is not necessarily anything to worry about, especially if it was early and the lights were still off. My fish often do that in the night and early hours. On an upside, adding cold water is a great spawning trigger as the fish think that the rain is coming which in the wild means plenty of water for the coming months for their fry, so you may well find that when you get home they have started getting frisky

I am sure they will be absolutely fine!

 

[jojouk]

On my way home now, so I'll find out in a couple of hours!!! I got a bag load of free dvd's today (work perk) and ironically, Finding Nemo was in there!!

Fingers crossed they are all well...

 

[jojouk]

Just got in...and all is well

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Good news, but if you worry about your fish anything like I do I bet you have used used several days energy when you had no idea what you were going to come home to

 

[jojouk]

Good news, but if you worry about your fish anything like I do I bet you have used used several days energy when you had no idea what you were going to come home to

Yes most certainly!! Was stressing all day!!! They are like my children or something!!!