What happened to my aquarium?! Did I mess up?

[Melodie]

I have a 9 gallon Fluval Flex, that has been running since last May (about 8 months now). I do have live plants in it, and until yesterday, a little Betta fish named Pi.

At the beginning of December I had to move my aquarium to my work while I’m between houses. I work for my dad’s small business, so getting permission was no problem.

The aquarium is currently set up in my dad’s office (because it locks and only he and I have keys for it, and he was worried about people messing with it). The aquarium lights are on a timer (set for 7 hours a day), and I have an auto feeder set up (ZooMed Bettamatic- I used it a few times before when going out of town for a few days) because I don’t trust my dad to remember to feed him, and I’m not there everyday. Also there are no windows in his office, so sunlight is not a factor here.

I work night shift 4 nights a week and check on everything while I’m there, and my dad is in during the day on weekdays and would let me know if anything was weird.

And so that’s how it has been for about a month now. Everything has been perfectly normal in there, and Pi seemed pretty happy.

On the 10th I cleaned the filter. I have been having a bit of algae build up on the plants for a few months now, and have been sort of just watching it and wondering if I should get some kind of algae-eating critter. Then I realized that I had never actually cleaned the filter since having the aquarium, and the research I had done suggested that I should be doing that every once in a while, so I figured why not?

As per what I read, I took the filter out, put it in a bucket of de-chlorinated water (close to the aquarium temp, so as not to kill any good bacteria hopefully) and squeezed it out a few times. Then I put it all back together.

Everything was fine up until last night, when I came in and the water was cloudy. I lifted the lid to find my poor fish and see if he was ok, and found him floating on his side at the top. He was gone.

I of course tested the water right away, and everything I was able to test for (ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite) came back 0. Even the Ph was normal! Now, I don’t know if there’s supposed to be traces of nitrate or nitrite, but my levels have always been at zero which I just took to mean that my plants and filter are doing a really great job. Maybe I'm wrong?

After that I decided to do a full water change, hoping it would help with the water cloudiness. I’m still not sure if that was the right thing to do, but I guess I was kind of in panic mode at the time… in any case, it didn’t help and the water was still cloudy last I checked before I left this morning.

I don’t know what exactly happened, or what I did wrong and was hoping you guys could help? I want to learn everything I can to make sure this never happens again..

From the reading I've done so far, my running theory is that cleaning the filter triggered a cycle which in turn triggered some kind of bacteria or algae bloom?

 

[Kyanite14]

That can definitely happen. I’ve heard of some people with cycled tanks overturning the substrate, this can cause decaying debris to kick up and spread ammonia around the whole tank. When I clean my filter, I always squeeze it out in the bucket of water that I discard after a water change. That way, the parameters are the exact same. The clouds could’ve been a mixture of debris and algae that was trapped in the filter, if this was full of ammonia it could have shocked Pi. Depending on how long it had been, perhaps the bacteria was able to control the spike before you found him. Maybe the debris was sitting in an area around the filter where the bacteria colony wasn’t present, and you cleaning it dislodged it?

ANOTHER possibility is that the automatic feeder malfunctioned. I’ve read lots of reviews that say those will either clog up, or dump all the food at once. If you check the filter and substrate, do you see a bunch of food? That for sure would’ve caused a spike.

This is all speculation. There’s no way to tell for sure what happened, but the most you can do is learn from this to prevent it next time. I would clean the filter on a more regular basis to prevent a large buildup. I usually do it every 3-4 weeks, but I have a 20 gallon with a low bio load, so you may need to do more often.

I’m very sorry about Pi Know you’re not the only one whose ever made a mistake with bettas, before I knew anything about proper fish care, I had betta fish. I was around 11-14 I think.

My first one died because I had a space heater running next to it.
My second one died because of a fungal infection, I knew nothing about water parameters and would clean the tank rarely (and with a FULL scrub of everything)
My third one SOMEHOW lived 4 years, but likely because my mother doted on him a LOT when he went blind. I also had switched to pellets to prevent flakes from rotting the water.

After I started learning more about fish I felt so bad about how I treated my previous bettas. I probably won’t ever get one again because of the guilt, even if I’d know what I’m doing now I’m still learning too, I recently posted multiple questions about my guppies.

 

[GaryE]

Sometimes fish just suddenly die. That will cloud the water if the dead fish is missed on the first day.

You can do everything right, and have it all go wrong. Chances are that properly done filter cleaning had nothing to do with the death - coincidence.

 

[davros]

Any chance the bucket you used to clean the filter had previously contained some cleaning chemical?

 

[Melodie]

Any chance the bucket you used to clean the filter had previously contained some cleaning chemical?

Good thought but no- I bought the bucket specifically for aquarium maintenance, and its only ever been used for that

 

[Melodie]

That can definitely happen. I’ve heard of some people with cycled tanks overturning the substrate, this can cause decaying debris to kick up and spread ammonia around the whole tank. When I clean my filter, I always squeeze it out in the bucket of water that I discard after a water change. That way, the parameters are the exact same. The clouds could’ve been a mixture of debris and algae that was trapped in the filter, if this was full of ammonia it could have shocked Pi. Depending on how long it had been, perhaps the bacteria was able to control the spike before you found him. Maybe the debris was sitting in an area around the filter where the bacteria colony wasn’t present, and you cleaning it dislodged it?

ANOTHER possibility is that the automatic feeder malfunctioned. I’ve read lots of reviews that say those will either clog up, or dump all the food at once. If you check the filter and substrate, do you see a bunch of food? That for sure would’ve caused a spike.

This is all speculation. There’s no way to tell for sure what happened, but the most you can do is learn from this to prevent it next time. I would clean the filter on a more regular basis to prevent a large buildup. I usually do it every 3-4 weeks, but I have a 20 gallon with a low bio load, so you may need to do more often.

I’m very sorry about Pi Know you’re not the only one whose ever made a mistake with bettas, before I knew anything about proper fish care, I had betta fish. I was around 11-14 I think.

My first one died because I had a space heater running next to it.
My second one died because of a fungal infection, I knew nothing about water parameters and would clean the tank rarely (and with a FULL scrub of everything)
My third one SOMEHOW lived 4 years, but likely because my mother doted on him a LOT when he went blind. I also had switched to pellets to prevent flakes from rotting the water.

After I started learning more about fish I felt so bad about how I treated my previous bettas. I probably won’t ever get one again because of the guilt, even if I’d know what I’m doing now I’m still learning too, I recently posted multiple questions about my guppies.

Yeah I definitely think I should be cleaning the filter more often in any case. Is it better to squeeze it out in a bucket of fresh de-chlorinated water, or would it be better to use aquarium water during a water change?

Also, how do you know if you have too much bio load for your aquarium?

 

[Kyanite14]

Yeah I definitely think I should be cleaning the filter more often in any case. Is it better to squeeze it out in a bucket of fresh de-chlorinated water, or would it be better to use aquarium water during a water change?

Also, how do you know if you have too much bio load for your aquarium?

I would do the aquarium water change. If you use a calculator for your tank size like aqua advisor, you can calculate the bio load.