Absolute disaster.....
- Thread starter scarysdad
- Start date
Now you guys have got me thinking allsorts of possibilities. I was coming down to either of 2 possibilities....
the mussels which were purchased frozen then put straight into my freezer. Before feeding I thawed in a little tank water the same way I feed all frozen foods.
The other strong contender for me is the oxygenation in the tank....during the water change yesterday I filled the tank a couple of inches higher than normal thereby reducing the water agitation from my spraybar. Also since getting the Tang and the foxface they have been going to town on the hair algae that was in the tank this will obviously raise the CO2 in the tank(this would also account for the reduced ph value of 7.8) as less photosythesis from less plant-life end product less O2. Since I don't run a fuge this i would imagine would have a big impact on oxygenation in the tank...?
Well spotted aquaman77 the chemicals I use at work include a very nasty substance called Permethrin this stuff is lethal to all aquatic life. So you can be sure I wear gloves at all times, and wash hands a couple of times at work, shower when I get home the hands are scrubbed again prior to working in any of my tanks. The day I did the water change on the FOWLR tank I also did a w/c on my Malawi tank with no ill effects there.
Wolverine all of the soaps/creams we use at work are non alcohol containing. In the house I use std soap but i rinse very scrupulously(its my wife's running joke that i am like a surgeon 'scrubbing up' before i clean a tank...)
the mussels which were purchased frozen then put straight into my freezer. Before feeding I thawed in a little tank water the same way I feed all frozen foods.
The other strong contender for me is the oxygenation in the tank....during the water change yesterday I filled the tank a couple of inches higher than normal thereby reducing the water agitation from my spraybar. Also since getting the Tang and the foxface they have been going to town on the hair algae that was in the tank this will obviously raise the CO2 in the tank(this would also account for the reduced ph value of 7.8) as less photosythesis from less plant-life end product less O2. Since I don't run a fuge this i would imagine would have a big impact on oxygenation in the tank...?
Well spotted aquaman77 the chemicals I use at work include a very nasty substance called Permethrin this stuff is lethal to all aquatic life. So you can be sure I wear gloves at all times, and wash hands a couple of times at work, shower when I get home the hands are scrubbed again prior to working in any of my tanks. The day I did the water change on the FOWLR tank I also did a w/c on my Malawi tank with no ill effects there.
Wolverine all of the soaps/creams we use at work are non alcohol containing. In the house I use std soap but i rinse very scrupulously(its my wife's running joke that i am like a surgeon 'scrubbing up' before i clean a tank...)
Sunfish......I used a salt mix....I use tap water which i treat with Seachem Prime dechlorinator and mix using a power filter containing Seachem's Seagel(removes phosphate and nitrate) the water is aged/mixed with this power filter and a heater for at least 48hrs. I change 10gal weekly. Surely if anything has been added to the local tapwater it would have affected some of my freshwater tanks which are all changed using the same tapwater treated with Prime dechlorinator and I change a much greater %age per w/c on the FW tanks.
I can vouch for the purity of our tapwater here in Scotland our reservoirs are the source for all the drinking water in the UK, unlike the US very little is added to our tapwater chemically before drinking; I still use the Prime just in case. no problems in 4 years of FW keeping.
I can vouch for the purity of our tapwater here in Scotland our reservoirs are the source for all the drinking water in the UK, unlike the US very little is added to our tapwater chemically before drinking; I still use the Prime just in case. no problems in 4 years of FW keeping.
I am not sure about the UK but paul b has had his corals all die several times when his water company in New York added zinc orthophosphate to his tap water. It did all of this damage dispite passing through a RO/DI unit. I don't think you can rule out your water source simply because your FW fish are not effected. Being a long time FW hobbyist I can tell you that they are way hardier than most SW fish. I am not saying it is your makeup water for sure, but it certainly is a possibility.
sunfishh.....my kneejerk when i saw the fish on Wednesday was that it could have been the w/c. But weighing up the evidence I decided against it as I watched these fish before i went out on nightshift on tues.....the w/c was completed early on tues pm and they were all as normal not any sign of stress whatsoever my contention would be that if i had just introduced any kind of poison at that stage i would have seen at least some kind of abnormal behaviour in the 6 or so hours i observed the fish. My belief that this had certainly in some of the fishes cases something to do with oxygenation levels arises from the fact that the bodies were found right below the powerhead on the lhs of the tank.....this is very significant to me as none of the fish ventured over to the lhs of the tank on a normal day they all hung out on the rock pile on the right side of the tank.....don't ask me why could be that because they were very small fish in a 6ft tank they liked the safety in numbers thing.....but it definitely looked like an effort to get to a highly aerated part of the tank...away from their normal territories. This would account for 2 of the dead fish; the Harlequin Tuskfish had been in the tank for a few days when he arrived by courier he was near dead the courier was way outside his 'arrive by' time and the temp in the fishes bag was way down in the 60s F Once in the tank he never seemed to fully recover just lay on the bottom so if there was one fish that I expected not to be there on Wed it was him. My Clown Tang I found next to my Maroon Clown's fake anenome....I think the Clownfish killed him....they had been fighting of and on every time the Tang tried to swim near the anenome....the Maroon was considerably bigger than the Tang. Obviously I will never know what happened as I have been advised I'll just have to put it down to experience and restock slowly. On a better note the Foxface pulled through she is back to normal. The Maroon Clown and the Bursa Trigger continue to carry on like nothing ever happened.....
Still feel crap though....have binned the Mussel just in case and am crapping myself about my next w/c......
Still feel crap though....have binned the Mussel just in case and am crapping myself about my next w/c......
anbosu
New member
I lost a few fish after a move once because I filled my tank up too high and the water surface wasn't agitated enough. I took off part of the return pipe to get it slightly above water level and within a few hours the rest of my fish were fine even though just a few hours before they were gasping on the bottom.
ladyshark
Premium Member
Scarysdad
Don't feel guilty!! You are obviously a very careful tank keeper. I think we all feel like we should have known or done something differently when we have a loss, but learning from these occurances is what makes us better hobbyists. Nothing can make that bad feeling go away though--its hard to loose our prides and joys.....so sorry to hear about the loss.
Don't feel guilty!! You are obviously a very careful tank keeper. I think we all feel like we should have known or done something differently when we have a loss, but learning from these occurances is what makes us better hobbyists. Nothing can make that bad feeling go away though--its hard to loose our prides and joys.....so sorry to hear about the loss.
