babies die right after bottom cleaning
- Thread starter steamman
- Start date
after raising many hatches cleaning the bottom of the tank did not kill them cleaning remove ammiona. You do not give any info but i would assume that you did not have enough green water for them and they need alot of rotifers. growing rotifers and keeping enough green water is important read julia springs book on rasing clown fish
msman825
New member
good point, I have never had them die either from cleaning bottom. more info on your setup might help you get some answers
steamman
Member
Steamman
These fish were way past green water.
These were not fry. They were three or four hundred 5 or 6 week old fish Gold Stripe Maroon Clowns.
I thought maybe I let too much time go by and let too much food and waste accumulate on the bottom. Maybe an anaerobic condition developed and there were some trapped gasses. Or possibly a nasty bacteria was the cause of an infection and wiped out the tank.
It has been a while since this occurred and I did not take any tank parameters. They should not have been far off acceptable ranges but can't confirm this. Tank was 20 gallon long. This tank was self contained. Bare bottom with a corner filter running carbon and floss. I use an ammonia meter to make sure that was in check. Food was Otohemi.
I am certainly no expert at raising fry. I am having some success. Every day I learn something more.
jp634
These fish were way past green water.
These were not fry. They were three or four hundred 5 or 6 week old fish Gold Stripe Maroon Clowns.
I thought maybe I let too much time go by and let too much food and waste accumulate on the bottom. Maybe an anaerobic condition developed and there were some trapped gasses. Or possibly a nasty bacteria was the cause of an infection and wiped out the tank.
It has been a while since this occurred and I did not take any tank parameters. They should not have been far off acceptable ranges but can't confirm this. Tank was 20 gallon long. This tank was self contained. Bare bottom with a corner filter running carbon and floss. I use an ammonia meter to make sure that was in check. Food was Otohemi.
I am certainly no expert at raising fry. I am having some success. Every day I learn something more.
to me what screams out is an outside contamination process not really a gas release. I could be wrong but I would think to have a gas accumulation in an undisturbed environment that you would need a subsrate bed of some sort. This bed would trap and accumulate the gases and when you disturbed it then the release of said gas would run through the water column. But you do not have a sand bed. So I would think that this idea goes out the door, but I am not a chemist and I dont know everything there is to know about water chemistry. It just seems logically that this would not happen. What does seem logical is maybe you introduced a toxin into the tank (idea 1). Maybe you washed your hands with a certain type of soap that left a residu on your hands or previously changed your oil a few hours earlier and thought you got all the oil off of your hands by washing them. Or some scenario where there was a toxin transfer from your hands to the water when you put your hands into the water. (idea 2) would be that you ammonia shocked your fish. You might have had such a high level of ammonia in the tank and did not know it so that when you changed the water, for example a 50% water change you decreased your ammonia ppm by 50%. One would think that reducing the ammonia is the best scenario, but it might have been too much change for these fragile organisms at their stage of life. (idea 3) the temperature from the new water and old water could have been drastically different thus creating shock. (idea 4) if you used new saltwater instead of parent tank water the fry might not have been able to handle new uncycled water yet. (idea 5) maybe it was a combination of everything put together described above. Or maybe it just was not meant to be. You need to try and remember everything you did or tried, sometimes this is where a journal comes in handy. I hope you figure out what caused this and good luck in the future.
birddog486
Member
How long had it been since the last bottom cleaning? If it's been more than a week it was possibly a gas release. If it wasn't that did you add a significant amount of new water quickly to the tank before they died? If this was the case, the new water will increase the ph which will cause any ammonia present to become more toxic immediately.
My guess would be if the tank had alot of detritus on the bottom and it was disturbed while cleaning and not just syphoned off the bottom. You ended up with a really high BOD (bio oxygen demand) and the fish didn't have enough oxygen.
My guess would be if the tank had alot of detritus on the bottom and it was disturbed while cleaning and not just syphoned off the bottom. You ended up with a really high BOD (bio oxygen demand) and the fish didn't have enough oxygen.
steamman
Member
At the point of this disaster I already had a cycled corner filter running in the tank. I use a 50 watt heater on a controller set at 80 deg. I also had a two more air stones to help move water around in the 20 long.
The tank had a fresh Seachem ammonia meter in it. With these meters you can tell if the ammonia raises above .02 ppm.
I did not test the water outside of salinity. I was also behind on water changes and bottom cleaning. I guess I was getting too confident.
madean
I don't put my hands in the tank normally. I don't believe I did it then. I guess something like that could have happened but not likely.
Less than .02ppm ammonia in the tank when I cleaned the bottom as well as during and after I cleaned it. I don't change that much water at a time. Usually not more than 25%.
My water is aged a minimum of 48 hrs before I use it. I also use an ammonia remover conditioner in the water. And all my water is made with rodi. I also drip or dose my water change into the tank slowly. Therefore ph shock, temperature shock , and ammonia shock, could be ruled out.
Thank you for the good luck wishes. I haven't had a repeat offense since.
birddog486
I lean more towards this theory. I did not clean the bottom for a couple or three weeks. There was a heavy coating of overfed otohemi and fish waste on the bottom. I did not siphon the bottom. I used a turkey baster as I recall. I don't know if I scraped it into a pile first or just sucked it up. I do not use that method any more. Now I just siphon and do it more frequently.
It has been so long I don't recall the exact chain of events. I believe that the fish started dieing within minutes like I said in my first post here. If that was happening I may have added water more quickly than my usual drip in a knee jerk reaction. I do think it was already too late at that point.
Thanks you all for your theories on this. I am practicing better husbandry methods now and have not duplicated this scenario since. I am having greater success with the young fish (past metamorphosis) now. That was only my fourth batch.
Tahoe Reefer
New member
Did you test the PH in the "baby" tank and the new replacemnet water? If there was any Ammonia/Free Ammonia in the tank an increase in PH would proportionately increase the free ammonia, which is the most toxic form of ammonia. Depending on the amount of ammonia and the amount of water changed, it could have killed them all, easily.
EDIT:
I see that you did test for ammonia. Was the test for NH3 or NH3 & NH4+? I didn't see a mention of PH testing but, I just skimmed the thread.
EDIT:
I see that you did test for ammonia. Was the test for NH3 or NH3 & NH4+? I didn't see a mention of PH testing but, I just skimmed the thread.
Last edited:
The rapidity of death so soon after the cleaning is suggestive of shock or toxin. With several weeks of excess food and feces accumulation, the water Q was quite likely severely degraded (pH, alk, etc.), which would have the fish at a great disadvantage and prone to such shock. It's also quite possible to have toxins build up from the decay and contribute to the problem. The lesson here, always keep up on bottom cleaning and water changes. 90% of aquaculture is janitorial duties
steamman
Member
I did not test for ph. Only ammonia with a Seachem ammonia meter. Not the best but it was a constant monitor. The babies started dieing before I could add any measurable changed water from the best of my recollection. I always slow drip my water. I understand the ph increase makes the free ammonia in the tank more toxic and this could have been the cause. However I did not get a chance to add that much water before they started dieing. If one cup went in it was a lot. One cup could have taken 15 minutes to drip.
The rapidity of death so soon after the cleaning is suggestive of shock or toxin. With several weeks of excess food and feces accumulation, the water Q was quite likely severely degraded (pH, alk, etc.), which would have the fish at a great disadvantage and prone to such shock. It's also quite possible to have toxins build up from the decay and contribute to the problem. The lesson here, always keep up on bottom cleaning and water changes. 90% of aquaculture is janitorial duties
I do believe my lack of maintenance was in the end was the deciding factor in what occurred. Whatever chemical reaction or combination of would not have happened if I stuck to a proper cleaning schedule.
Thank you all who have taken the time to help me figure out this tragedy. It hasn't happened since.
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