# All fish died while moving?



## NicoleMaio (Jun 7, 2018)

Ok so strange as this sounds, this is the second time this has happened. I'll give a rundown of both ...

We moved May 25th, 2017 at which time we also moved all our fish. We were moving from a house to an apartment and we had enough overlap to drain a 55gal tank, use the same water in a 10gal (with the fish temporarily in it), move the 55gal and set it up. So after the 55gal was moved and filled, we returned to get the fish from the 10gal. It was running a filter with water from the 3 year established tank and all fish were ok. We transferred the fish into a 5 gallon bucket for a short 20 minute car ride where the surface tension was periodically broken. While pulling onto our street we heard all the fish hitting the sides of the bucket. Upon opening the bucket inside, the fish were all dead looking. We quickly put them into the new tank and held them to the bubbles and used the net to do CPR. 5 fish lives and 2 died. The sucker fish was un-phased. We thought maybe somehow the bucket inadvertently got something in it and discarded it.

This tank had the following fish: Frontsa (saved), sucker fish (saved), catfish (saved), yellow lab (saved), random cow looking cichlid (saved), yellow lab (died), albino cichlid (died),

Today we moved (6/7/18) and we were not fortunate enough to be able to set up the tank beforehand. We transferred the fish into a 5 gallon bucket for a 5 mile (about 8 minute car ride). We got them inside and they were swimming around. All water in the bucket was from the previously established tank. Nothing new was introduced. We put the water into the 10 gallon tank with filtration. Within 5 minutes they were jumping out of the water like the pH was too low. The parameters were fine before leaving and they had no issues in this tank for a year now. The fish all died and this time despite about an hour of CPR, we were not able to save any. My boyfriends frontsa of 6 years passed and again the sucker fish was in-phased.

These were the following fish: Frontosa (died), peacock (died), random cow looking cichlid (died), small peacock (died), catfish (died), suckerfish (lived).

I don't know the specific species of all the fish and my boyfriend is really upset so I'm not going to bother him right now. We want to know if anyone out there has any idea what happened? We will have to move again in a year (probably only within a 20 minute drive) and we don't want to start another tank if it's going to happen again. At the same time we love having a hobby tank and just upgraded to a really nice set up. I can't find ANYTHING on the internet that has any explanation.


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## Ichthys (Apr 21, 2016)

A 6 year old frontosa in a 5 gallon bucket with other fish? Sounds like a huge bioload for one bucket. Given that your water was alkaline(?) then it was probably ammonia poisoning. When moving fish in alkaline water you can't crowd them even for a few minutes. One pee without a filter and they're all dying. Next time I would split the fish up in as much of the water that you're taking with you, and add some ammonia remover (zeolite).


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