# Lost 16 fish overnight!! :-(



## lucrent (Dec 2, 2007)

Hi,

Well, pretty bad day for me today, I had 27 fish in a 110G, had this tank setup for two years with no problems, no losses. I also have a 210, 55 and 29.

I bought a couple of gold severums a weeks ago, which I added to the tank with out quarantine, dumb move of course, they had Ich.

I started the typical Ich treatment with daily doses combined with 50% water changes, up the temp a little and maintain salt levels at 1TBS per Gallon. I caught this early and there were very few symptoms, just a few white spots on a few fish.

Last night I noticed that the tank temp gone up very little, it was at 81 so I increased the heater by one degree to 72 (yeah I know, crappy heater ,advice to anyone, do not buy hydor heaters), this morning it looked liked 86 though the LCD max temp is 86.

I immediately did a 50% water change, and will probably to another this afternoon, hopefully the 11 survivors will make it.

One symptom amongst several of the dead fish was a swollen belly. This was a CA/SA/community tank. All that survived were 2 of 3 African Leaf Fish, 1 Green severum (may be), 1 Gold Severum, All 4 Gouramis made it, 1 of 2 Giant Danio, and both silver dollars (one has a swollen lip).

I checked the water parameters with the dead fish in the water, Amo: .25, Nit: .25 , PH 6.8 (none of this would explain it)

Could this have been the temp or do you think a toxin, or something else?


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## under_control (Jan 9, 2008)

Well, temp for starters. Ammonia and nitrite increases that come from no where could have done it too. If your fish are use to a well cycled tank, an increase that happened quick can easily cause problems.

High temps remove oxygen from the water column, so that is a good place to start.


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## lucrent (Dec 2, 2007)

The surviving fish are still alive, they are swimming around. The only one which is still unsure is the green severum, hopefully he will improve, he's a good size, he seems to have gotten some of this color back, though still resting on the bottom of the tank and breathing heavily.

One thing I did notice is that when I turned the lights on this morning, the fish that were alive were all breathing on the surface.

You may be right about the O2 with temp.


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

First of all: really sorry for the loss of so many fish.



> I started the typical Ich treatment with daily doses combined with 50% water changes, up the temp a little and maintain salt levels at 1TBS per Gallon. I caught this early and there were very few symptoms, just a few white spots on a few fish.


What ick treatment did you do: heat and salt or did you do an ick med? I'm confused by the 'daily doses'. Did you mean that you were re-adding salt after the 50% water change?

The fish being bloated after death really doesn't tell us much.

So all the fish were eating and swimming normally last night, correct? And also during the past week? 
And then this morning 16 were dead. 
The surviving fish: what symptoms were they showing this morning? Did their symptoms change after you did the water change? How so?

Ick doesn't kill fish fast like that. If the temp got up really high that might have been it. Some sort of toxin could also be at fault here. Alls it takes is a little gasoline or soap residue. Another possibility is that your filter got clogged or is clogged and without 02 the beneficial bacteria in your filter would have died causing an ammonia spike.

What are you using for a declorinator? How much water do you normally remove during partial water changes and how often do you do water changes?

Robin


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## lucrent (Dec 2, 2007)

Hi,

To answer questions:

I used quick cure: 80 drops/day, I was on the fourth day, there was no negative reaction from the treatment.

My water is traditionally at 80F, I raised the heater one notch, that rasied the temp to 81, last night I raised it 1 more notch, and found the temp at 86 this morning.

I usually keep 1 Tablespoon/Gallon of aquarium Salt, which I add after every water change. I did not change this routine.

The fish are generally active and eat aggressively, they did that last night. There was no change in behavior in the last week.

At the time I'm writing this, the surviving fish are doing fine, the Green Severum which was lying in its side at the bottom of the aquarium is now swimming and breathing normally. The silver dollar's swollen bottom lip has returned to normal. Some of them are picking at the gravel looking for food.

For filtration I use an FX5 and an emperor 400. I had turned off the emperor because of the carbon in the media.

For a declorinator I use Prime, I double the dose, so for a 50% or 50G water change in this case I add two caps.

Thanks!

Laurent


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

> For filtration I use an FX5 and an emperor 400. I had turned off the emperor because of the carbon in the media.


When during all of this did you turn it off and when did you turn it back on? This may be your source of ammonia and that ammonia would have been more toxic at the higher temp AND if your tap water is a ph above 7.0 then adding large amounts of this higher ph water during water changes would have also caused the ammonia to become much more toxic.

One TABLEspoon of salt per gallon is a lot of salt to keep in the water on an ongoing basis. Do you have some reason for using that much? That's the dosage I usually recommend for treating ick without heat. One tablespoon per FIVE gallons is the normal amount of salt to keep in the tank when you're not treating anything in particular and many would argue that it's not necessary to add ANY salt, (sodium chloride).

Good to hear that your other fish are looking and behaving better. If you haven't already turned the 400 back on: don't until you've rinsed the media in a bucket of declorinated water or you could just replace it.

Again, sorry for the loss of your fish.

Robin


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## lucrent (Dec 2, 2007)

Hi,

I turned off the emperor that night, but left the fx5 running. I figured that the fx5 was doing most of the work anyway.

My tap water is naturally above 7.0, more like 7.6, which works great for the African Cichlids, for this tank I use 7.0 regulator from seachem.

I missed typed about the salt....I was pretty upset about this yesterday, in fact looking at the nearly empty tank this morning is quite disheartening, it was really painful to take out all those pretty fish, and see them lifeless in a bucket, most I had for more than a year, close to 2, see them grow, get use to you, etc...and of course my main worry is what did I do wrong, so that I can avoid it from happening again....I added 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons, for a 50G water change would add 10TBS.

I turned the emperor back yesterday morning, and just read your post this morning so its been running for 24hr.

All the surviving fish look OK and show no signs of stress, fins, color, all ok. I decided to feed them a little this morning to gauge their interest, all are eating except for the green severum, who swam towards the surface, but did not eat.

Thanks for your thoughts Robin.

Laurent


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

Well in cases like this we often don't for sure what happened. It might have been that the beneficial bacteria in your 400 died and this would have caused an ammonia spike.

That's just one possible scenario. Could have been that some sort of contaminant got into the tank--soap, gasoline residue, perfume, etc. Or it might have been that the heater malfunctioned. There's also at least one bacterial infection that I know of that can kill healthy fish over night. Columnaris. Usually you'll see some out ward sign of the infection--fuzzy growth or patchy areas but I have read that Columnaris can be internal.

I don't blame you for feeling bad but I hope that you will be encouraged to know that in my time of moderating and being a member here there have many cases exactly like yours and it seems to happen to both beginner aquarists as well as to people who've been keeping fish forever and know everything there is to know about them. 
Unless it was Columnaris I wouldn't be too concerned that you've got some awful disease in the tank. Most diseases have symptoms that build over at least a few days time. When fish die overnight it's usually a toxin in the water, aggression from another fish or a critical problem with water quality.

Continue to keep a close eye on your remaining fish, learn what there is to learn, (not easy to do since we don't know for sure what happened), and try to put it all behind you. 

Robin


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## lucrent (Dec 2, 2007)

Thanks for the support! I'm guessing it was a combination of water too hot, combined with reduced filtration that caused a drop in O2. I'm guessing the water was 86, but my thermometer doesn't go any higher, it could have been ninety.

And don't be impatient, like me, and not use your quarantine tank, had I used it would have probably avoided this whole mess!

My take away from this, and I think it is a mistake a lot of us do is tinker too much with the tanks and over do it, as well as, if you have equipment that is showing signs of failure, replace it immediately.

A heater that heats water to 80F when you have it set at 71 is not reliable.

I'm way too addicted to the hobby to stop, it's a lesson learned.

Thanks!


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