Tank crash - advice please! Also, sorry for my absence! I'm back :-)

[Fishiemang]

Have we checked.for.ammonia?

I have tanks that ain't had a "water change" in years. My 38 gallon bowfront for almost 3 now. It is also overstocked with livebearers crappin out kiddos. I use a Marineland Penguin 200 for a filter. Ain't cleaned the sponge for a while now. When fish disappear, I simply let nature do what it do. The snails go to town on the carcasses. I feed this tank maybe once every second or third day too...depending on my memory. This is my "show" tank in my living room. Heavily planted as well. No major die off in there. I know at one point there musta been high ammonia, because I noticed some red gill action for a few days, but that cleared itself up.

I doubt the neglect you feel you committed contributed to the issue. There was a combination of things that have got ya.

First: Stop feeding the tank. They will be fine for a while.

Next, you can do several small water changes every few hours, which will allow the fish to slowly acclimate to the new conditions, to avoid shocking them. I've done that before to try saving a tank. It worked. Several 15% or so changes every 3 hours give or take and get that water changed over.

Get that filter running to get that water churning. Your issue may very well be low oxygenation due to the filter being down. Especially if the fish are swimming towards the surface.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Yo! Missed you loads missy.?

Yeh its the big change in PH thats thats the worry for swapping out the water. The high nitrates = high nitric acid which has probably lowered the KH and PH. Doing a big fat water change will subject them all to a swing in PH so slow and steady would be better.. 20% twice per day if you can. Might not save them all but I think it would help to save some at least ??

I missed you tonnes too! I'm sorry for being away, depression sucks! But I always come back from it Have loads to talk about and share regarding tanks, and want to see how everyone else's are doing too! Thank you for the pH info, I've learned something very useful! Test results below

Your back! Yay! ?

Was wondering where you went...

@NCaquatics and @seangee haven't been on for a while, not sure why. @Crispii and @JuiceBox52 also left for some reason.

Anyway, there are still a lot more active and awesome members still here. Glad your back!

Hi! Thank you so much! Sad that seangee and NC haven't been around, hopefully they'll wander back here when they're able, we've all got a lot of stuff going on all over the world, so it's natural that people will come and go. I didn't realise quite how long I'd been gone until I logged back in! Time flies sometimes. It's good to see that you're still here Hope all is good with you and your aquariums!

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Have we checked.for.ammonia?

I have tanks that ain't had a "water change" in years. My 38 gallon bowfront for almost 3 now. It is also overstocked with livebearers crappin out kiddos. I use a Marineland Penguin 200 for a filter. Ain't cleaned the sponge for a while now. When fish disappear, I simply let nature do what it do. The snails go to town on the carcasses. I feed this tank maybe once every second or third day too...depending on my memory. This is my "show" tank in my living room. Heavily planted as well. No major die off in there. I know at one point there musta been high ammonia, because I noticed some red gill action for a few days, but that cleared itself up.

I doubt the neglect you feel you committed contributed to the issue. There was a combination of things that have got ya.

First: Stop feeding the tank. They will be fine for a while.

Next, you can do several small water changes every few hours, which will allow the fish to slowly acclimate to the new conditions, to avoid shocking them. I've done that before to try saving a tank. It worked. Several 15% or so changes every 3 hours give or take and get that water changed over.

Get that filter running to get that water churning. Your issue may very well be low oxygenation due to the filter being down. Especially if the fish are swimming towards the surface.

Thank you so much for this detailed reply! It's really helpful. Appreciate the compassion too for the guilt I'm feeling! I know that these things happen, and we all make mistakes, but fishkeeping is a brutal hobby sometimes when things go wrong and you lose fish. I try to remind myself that we all do the best we can at the time with the knowledge and abilities we have, but there's still guilt there, knowing it was preventable. Although I suppose if I didn't feel bad about it, I'd have no business keeping fish. If I ever reached the point that I didn't care or feel responsible for them, I'd give up the hobby. I'm really sad about the botia especially, it was heartbreaking finding her dying. They're pretty old, at least seven, but it wasn't a natural passing. But resolving to do better for them and learn from this, do my best to save the others.

 

[Fishmanic]

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[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Okay, so I ran some more tests, the pH was identical to the tapwater, around 7,2. Nitrites and ammonia at 0 after the water change I did earlier, and the cory was looking better too. Usually I turn the lights off at night, but I left the blue light on tonight so I could keep checking on them.

Since the pH was the same, I did a 30% WC, seven hours after doing the 15-20% WC. I'm wary of doing a 50 or 75% on this tank right now since it seems to have stabilised and nitrites and ammonia are okay, will keep up the partial water changes and gravel cleaning every 12 hours or so, slow and steady.

Crossing fingers that the worst has passed. Think you're right, @Fishiemang , it was a combo of things that tipped it over the edge and started killing the weakest/oldest fish, but the fact it's an old tank might also have helped correct the ammonia spike. There's enough plant, plus bacteria all over the substrate/glass/decor etc that it ate through the ammonia.

So! I think overstocked tank, then dad unplugged the filter, caused an ammonia spike. Enough to kill some fish, but there are still a hundred or so other fish in there swimming about looking fine. The newer fish (danios were hit the hardest, and they're the most recent additions) were more stressed by the high nitrates, so more vulnerable, along with the older fish like the elderly botia. When I tested ammonia/nitrite/nitrate earlier, there was a low reading of nitrite, while there's zero nitrite now, seven hours later. So I presume ammonia spiked, but had been processed by the bacteria and plants by the time I tested, and the low nitrite reading was the remains of that spike being processed by the bacteria.

The temp is a slight concern. The thermometer was reading 75 degrees F, but the water felt warmer to me than it does in my tanks which are kept at 75 to 76, so I chucked another thermometer in there, and that was reading at just below 80 degrees. Not dangerously hot, but a tad warmer than I like it to be, and wondering why it's suddenly warmer than usual. Heater has fuzzy algae all over the top part of it so I can't see which direction to turn it down, and don't want to accidentally turn it up, so monitoring it for tonight, tomorrow I'll likely switch to a new heater and thermometer since I don't trust those ones now.

Oxygenation might well have been a problem. I didn't see any gasping at the surface, but I might well have just not seen some doing it. The water lettuce in there has taken off like mad, even though for the past year, I couldn't get any floating plants to survive in there. I usually remove handfuls of it every few days, but it spreads back out and tries to coat the whole surface. I pulled out handfuls of it tonight, and there's no airstone on there either, I usually rely on the surface disturbance from the filters for oxygenation.

Ammonia spike from filter turned off, killed fish, more ammonia, floating plant coating the surface and less surface disturbance from losing that main filter, high nitrates, water warmer than usual and thus holding less oxygen... that's easily enough stress and toxins to kill those ten fish. Bad combo of things, each of which might have been okay had they all not combined, perhaps.

I've done what I can for tonight, from what I can see, the other fish are okay at the moment, and test results are good apart from the high nitrates that I can bring down over the next few days with increasingly larger water changes. I chucked some carbon in the filter too, can't hurt. Removed a load of floating plant so there's a decent surface area and disturbance, and won't be feeding the fish for a few days.

Once I'm sure the tank has stabilised, I'll catch and sort these fish. Have to sort the stocking. It's just way too many batches of babies. I'd actually added the danios the last time I took a large batch of young to the store to use them as fry population control Feels a bit mean, but they were doing that job well. But there are still way too many young fish in there, most too small to go to the store yet. I'll put as many young as I can into my grow out tank and see if dad is willing to part with some of his adult livebearers to get this tank under control. I imagine he'll be more willing to let them go after this, and luckily my LFS is great and will take them.

Sorry for the long essay, to anyone who reads this far! Typing it out helps me figure it out in my own head and make a plan. The advice helped me so much, thank you all! Feel a lot better that I think I have a good idea of what happened now and how to fix it, so while it was bad with so many losses so fast, it hopefully won't be as bad as losing a whole tank. It's motivated me to finally get this tank properly sorted out now too, it's long overdue.

 

[eatyourpeas]

Try to get a good night sleep and all will be better tomorrow. ?

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Try to get a good night sleep and all will be better tomorrow. ?

Thank you, you're lovely!

Nearly 5am now so I'm pulling an all nighter tonight It's okay though since I napped for way too long yesterday. Gonna have a long relaxing shower now, then some coffee and start my day. Madam here will be wanting a nice long walk soon

Will get an early night tonight to get back on a normal sleep schedule!

 

[Naughts]

@Naughts @Stan510 and @Colin_T , would really appreciate any thoughts you guys have on whether to continue with small, daily water changes to adjust the water quality gradually and minimise shock, or whether to risk doing a larger 50 or 75% water change. Or if I should pull the fish that seem to be struggling (a bronze cory and pearl danio right now) and drip acclimate them to a clean tank. Or I could try pulling a large batch of the livebearers that seem absolutely fine and acclimate them to a clean tank, and reduce the bioload in the tank that crashed.

I'm so torn on which steps to take, knowing each option could be fatal.

Sorry, I just saw the tag. I was too tired to think yesterday, sorry. But Colin, msqw and fishiemang have got it covered. I also like your plan to rehome the female livebearers, this will reduce your workload. Best of luck!
Your dog is adorable!

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Sorry, I just saw the tag. I was too tired to think yesterday, sorry. But Colin, msqw and fishiemang have got it covered. I also like your plan to rehome the female livebearers, this will reduce your workload. Best of luck!
Your dog is adorable!

No need to be sorry! I got some great advice Appreciate you checking in today, hope you managed to get some good sleep!

LOL thank you, I think she's adorable too, and she knows full well she's adorable too and uses it to her full advantage! This is my younger girl. I say younger, but she just turned eight She still acts like a five year old though.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Tank update: No more losses overnight/this morning, yay! The two fish that concerned me last night, the cory and danio, look fine today. Mollies are courting as if they didn't have a near death experience yesterday...

Did a 30-35% WC again late morning, giving it a good gravel vac.

Will test it again later and probably do another partial WC tonight, or just once per day until nitrates are back in a good range, depending on test results and how the fish look.

So grateful for the support and advice y'all It was horrible to lose ten fish in two days, but given how many fish are in there and something went wrong enough to kill that many fish that fast, it's pretty remarkable I haven't lost more. Fingers crossed the crisis has passed!

 

[PheonixKingZ]

I missed you tonnes too! I'm sorry for being away, depression sucks! But I always come back from it Have loads to talk about and share regarding tanks, and want to see how everyone else's are doing too! Thank you for the pH info, I've learned something very useful! Test results below


Hi! Thank you so much! Sad that seangee and NC haven't been around, hopefully they'll wander back here when they're able, we've all got a lot of stuff going on all over the world, so it's natural that people will come and go. I didn't realise quite how long I'd been gone until I logged back in! Time flies sometimes. It's good to see that you're still here Hope all is good with you and your aquariums!

You to!

To be honest I have kind of been neglecting my tanks recently. Not sure why, I need to get motivated again...

 

[ClownLurch]

Good to see you back. Best of luck with everything. Stay safe n take care of yourself.

 

[eatyourpeas]

Thank you! Happy to see that you're still here! How are things with you and your fishes?

They are good. I went down the MTS path and started a journal, so I can keep up with what I am doing. Will need to update at some point, but will give you an idea. My latest addition is a Pinocchio shrimp named Bugie

Dear Diary...

It all started with a shrimp I needed as a model to draw from. Then the shrimp needed friends. But there was also this snail... Then I learned that the 1.5 gal. flower vase was too small. Then I learned that I needed a heater, and plants. Then my plant grew, and grew, and grew... so I got...

www.fishforums.net

Hope you had a good rest. It is still snowing here, so it'll be lots of knitting socks and research with a hot pot of tea nearby

 

[FishGuest5123]

I coulda killed him! Love him, but his weird ideas about "resting the motor" of the filters has caused me way too many nightmares! He hasn't touched the tank in ages, so I don't know why he got it in his head to unplug the main hood filters. Well, he said it was because the water level had dropped since heating has meant it evaporates faster, and he was worried about the intake and motor being above the water and burning out. But they're well under the waterline, and the water is only an inch or so below the rim. When fish started dying I was water testing and trying to work out what was going on, with no idea the main filter was unplugged. I was thinking old tank syndrome, but also confused about why so many were dying so suddenly, thought it has tipped over the balance and started to crash, but old tank syndrome itself doesn't usually mean lots of fish dying in the same day... so I was testing and trying to decide whether to go for a large water change, or smaller daily ones etc, then he mentions at 8pm tonight that maybe him unplugging the filter had something to do with it. He was talking about removing the hood filters, thinking they were poisoning the tank or something...

So I only discovered tonight that the main filters had been unplugged for two days. No wonder fish started dropping. That only left a tiny little internal filter on an overstocked, 57 gallon tank which I only really added for oxygenation/flow reasons, not to handle that bioload!

@Colin_T Thank you so much!
Water test results pre-water change were ammonia 0, nitrites 0.25ppm, nitrates a deep red, way too high, I can't tell whether 80 or 160ppm

I haven't tested pH. I admit I get confused about pH, but I have the API kit and can test that now, also have a GH and KH kit if those numbers would be useful? Tap pH is usually between 7,6 and 8.

So is it a sudden change in pH that is the most risky when doing water changes or moving any fish from that tank?

I did rinse the filters in old tank water and get them running again, and I pinched some media from the canisters I have running on my own tanks to try and help jump start the bacteria lost while the filters were off. The media in the filters was still damp so I'm hoping some bacteria survived, but I know I will have lost a lot of the nitrifying bacteria while the filters were off. I'm banking on/praying that the research suggesting a lot go dormant and will 'wake up', to pull the tank back, combined with the media I added and the substrate/tank bacteria repopulating.

I did gravel vac while doing the WC and moved decor around to make sure there were no more bodies producing ammonia (found a dead molly while doing that too ) so I'm sure there are no more bodies in there, and haven't fed them of course.

The cory is looking better. Still breathing a bit faster than I'd like, but otherwise looking normal, and poking about looking for food like the others are. The others are breathing normally. Hoping the 15-20% WC, Prime and getting the filters back on has pulled it back enough for them to make it overnight.

Will test the pH now, and retest the nitrites and see if there's still nitrites showing. I have salt I can add if needed, but I think the Prime also sorts out nitrites for 48 hours? I might have that wrong. Will check if the pH is close enough for a large water change, thank you so much!

So glad to have you back! Depression sucks! I’ve been there a couple of times in my life. Trying to make decisions at such a time is hard to do. The Prime only works for about 24-32 hours so use it daily. I would do a 30% water change today and another tomorrow. Stay busy and don’t sit idle. Worst thing you can do for depression. Here if you need to talk and prayers going up for you. ??

 

[Circus]

It really is nice to see you backing! I understand feeling under the weather. After losing my pup, I wasn't on for awhile and had a hard time doing anything other than minimum water changes. Now I am back in action and setting up new tanks, getting rid of smaller ones as I sell stock or they die off.