# Tank nearly completely wiped out in 2 hours!!!! Help



## dataz722 (Aug 25, 2014)

I know I just posted this in the illness section as well and I apologize, but hope it may get seen quicker here.

A few hours ago I did a water change on my 90 gallon african chiclid tank and no more than 2 hours later walked into the room and 6 fish were dead and all but two or three looked like they were taking their last breathes. Most of the ones still alive were respirating very hard, swimming very slow and some on their sides. Everything was perfectly fine before the water change. I pulled out all of the ones that were still breathing and just put them in a bowl with the same temp water and a good bit of prime. I then realized that I had completely forgotten to add the prime to the tank. Could chlorine/chloramine in the tap water have done that, that quickly or did something else somehow happen?

I have not checked the water params in a few weeks now as I recently shattered my ankle and my wife has been having to take care of pretty much everything and my water has been perfect for the past 9+ months. I am now out of Prime (was nearly out to begin with) so I am going to run to walmart and get some sort of conditioner and an air pump to try and at least help the ones that are left and are just in a huge bowl.

I feel absolutely horrible that I screwed up and did this. Is there any hope for the survivors? If when I get back home and test the water if it checks out ok what should I do? Complete water change? Not even put them back in the new tank at all? Something else?


----------



## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

There is always hope. Dose the tank with the full amount of dechlorinator for the gallons it holds. Do a water change (or not) if ammonia, nitrites or nitrates indicate the need. Best of luck...try not to beat yourself up. We've all been there...I killed a bunch of Synodontis Petricola (the real ones) and fully grown calvus by OD'ing my tank with Excel during a water change. I did have survivors and they did make it.


----------



## dataz722 (Aug 25, 2014)

So if the water params check out, just do a full water change and put them back in and hope for the best?


----------



## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

No need to change water, just treat it with the dechlorinator.


----------



## zimmy (Aug 13, 2010)

I'm sorry for your loss. You'll want to keep testing your parameters over the next few days. It's possible that the chlorine also killed the beneficial bacteria in your filters. If you have any other tanks it would be worth borrowing some established media from them for this tank.


----------



## dataz722 (Aug 25, 2014)

Is it possible that missing the prime would have been this catastrophic this quick?

By the time I got back there were only 4 out of the 21 still alive and I don't know if they will even make it through the night.

I actually just ended up picking up a 10 gallon tank kit at walmart so I have the four remaining ones set up in there and if they are still alive in the morning I will try to figure out what to do with the main tank. I did put some stress coat in the main tank and left the filters running so if it was chlorine hopefully it won't wipe out my entire bio filter, if it isn't too late.

Thanks for the advice.


----------



## zimmy (Aug 13, 2010)

dataz722 said:


> Is it possible that missing the prime would have been this catastrophic this quick?


It does seem quick. Usually if there's chloramine in the water, the fish will be sluggish and breathing heavily at first (as yours were) but deaths take longer to occur. Is your pH particularly low? That could cause harm to occur more quickly with chloramine.


----------



## Roger That (Aug 12, 2015)

zimmy said:


> dataz722 said:
> 
> 
> > Is it possible that missing the prime would have been this catastrophic this quick?
> ...


This was my first thought as well. If you haven't checked your water parameters in awhile....it's likely you're PH could be low. If your parameters were borderline, then the chloramine or chlorine is going to have a much bigger effect.


----------



## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Chlorine is about the only thing (absent a true poison) that will act that fast. As a kid when I won a goldfish at a fair by throwing a ping pong ball into their bowl, they always died overnight and I never knew why.

What is the purpose of stress coat? It's the dechlorinator that is needed. If in doubt you could test for chlorine.


----------



## dataz722 (Aug 25, 2014)

I will check the ph this morning. Since I just got the new tank last night I didn't test the water at all and was just going to do it this morning. The ph has always been really steady though so I kind doubt that could be it, but anything is possible.

As of this morning I have 3 estherae and 1 bn still alive and I think they might actually make it. The 3 estharae are swimming around pretty well and look like they are breathing better.

And Walmart was my only choice since it was after 9pm and it doesn't exactly have the best selection of aquarium supplies, my choice were stress coat and tetra aquasafe for water conditioners and I have never been a big fan of tetra.


----------



## zimmy (Aug 13, 2010)

DJRansome said:


> What is the purpose of stress coat? It's the dechlorinator that is needed. If in doubt you could test for chlorine.


API Stress Coat is a water conditioner/dechlorinator with aloe vera added. The extra ingredients are supposed to help reduce stress and heal damaged tissue.


----------



## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

dataz722 said:


> As of this morning I have 3 estherae and 1 bn still alive and I think they might actually make it. The 3 estharae are swimming around pretty well and look like they are breathing better.


 :thumb:


----------



## dataz722 (Aug 25, 2014)

All the water params are fine, including the ph. I wonder if I hit a pocket of gas in the sandbed when it was being cleaned along the glass. I always make sure to do it while the tank is draining and keep the siphon right near it in case any thing does get released, but maybe that could have been it.

And I noticed that two of the snails were out this morning and moving around fine. I would have thought they would have been the first affected actually.


----------



## zimmy (Aug 13, 2010)

That's great that things are looking back to normal.

How deep is your sandbed?


----------



## dataz722 (Aug 25, 2014)

Well lost another one last night. 

The sand bed it probably an average of 2.5-3 inches deep but in some areas it is probably 5+ from them all digging and moving it around.


----------



## tanker3 (May 18, 2015)

Very sorry for your loss, but do not hink it was the gravel bed. Chlorine is a killer, mixing it with Ammonia to make Chloramine makes it even more deadly. I hope the others make it.


----------



## noddy (Nov 20, 2006)

IMO, this 100% because of not adding the dechlorinator. I have forgot to add Prime when doing w/c's on my Tropheus tanks a few times, and have come back in the room to find them all on the bottom, swaying from side to side. A few minutes after adding the Prime, they have all bounced back. I did it once to my featherfin/cyp tank and wiped out most of the cyps. I actually now set a timer so that I go back into the fish room 20 mins after to check on them.


----------



## Dgomez724 (Jul 17, 2015)

Maybe you should store your prime in whatever bucket or container you are using for water changes. That way it is right in front of you.

Good luck.

Danny


----------



## Belcher (May 20, 2015)

Is it enough to prevent such problems?


----------



## mizpah9538 (Oct 25, 2014)

The only way to be completely sure IMHO is to use an RO/DI unit for your water change water.
The inital outlay is a bit steep but is cheap compared to re-stocking, not to mention the stress of loosing fish suddenly. I have an RO/DI unit in my garage connected to a 220ltr water butt for storage so that there is always plenty of water ready for water changes. I have also chucked a heater in there to make sure there is no risk of temp shock if I want to do a larger WC.
Another option (also a bit cheaper) is to use an inline de-chlorinator on a garden hose. This has the advantage of being slightly simpler in use in some ways. There is a downside to both though. The RO water will be very pure and the PH will be lower than cichlids need. To get round this I add a little salt water to the mix though my LFS tells me he just allows the tank to buffer the PH back.
For the inline de-chlorinator the main disadvantage for me is that there is no simple way to match the temperature of the tank so it needs to be fed in quite slowly so as not to shock the fish and it also won't remove the background nitrates fromt he water which the RO unit will do.


----------

