41 fish dead

[koi]

i had bought 40 rosy reds to put in my peaceful native tank last night from xtreme. There were 3 shiners in there. Today i came home everything was dead except for ! rosy red and 1 shiner. All the fish that died were wedged between my plants. Right now my shiner is between the larger plants and the rosy red is wedged between the smaller plants. I did a 50% water change today and cleaned out all the dead bodies. The result in deaths has nothing to do with my tank water for sure because the shiners were fine and lively until today. What do i do now? When can i get more fish again?

[cichlid1409]

how big is the tank? do you have alot of live plants in the tank?

[koi]

Yes there are alot of live plants in there. Its a 75g.

[CichlidFan]

sounds like a shock to the bio load of the tank....some sort of disease perhaps....odd to hear they died so quickly......did you pour the rosies straight into your tank water and all?

CF

[koi]

I let them accumilate for 15 minutes but yeh the water went into the tank as well.

[CichlidFan]

how long were the rosies in your tank, like 24 hours or something....and how long were the shinners' in the tank?

CF

[koi]

shiners were in there for about 3 weeks.

[cichlid1409]

cichlidfan could be right, but i dont think that would kill them over night. I think it was a lack of oxygen. remember that after lights out plants start using oxygen and releasing CO2 and if you have co2 on your tank could be worse. using a bubbler at night could prevent this. just my 0.02.

[koi]

What explains them being stuck inbetween the plants?

[freespool]

What explains them being stuck in between the plants?

Stupid fish :)

sorry had too

[koi]

All of them lol. It was a pain taking them out.

[koi]

So what can i do about it now when is it safe to add fish again?

[Zulaab]

You would need to look at the fish and see if they are all laying on their side and with open mouths. This is usually a sign of O2 starvation.
What you need to do is add a bubbler, and then buy one of those coral life strips that when the lights go out the night lights turn on. Well on that side you put on bubbler on so as soon as the lights go out the bubbler goes on and starts adding O2 to the tank. Just my 2 cents

[Sea-agg09]

Rosy's are very active fish. You cant just add 40 fish to a tank at 1 time, and you will never be able to have 40 rosies in your tank.

[Mzungu]

First of all, rosies usually are on their way out when they're in a dealer's tank. They're considered feeders, and as such aren't given much thought. Sad but true. They're almost always living in disease-ridden, overcrowded conditions. It's very possible your tank was TOO clean for them, and the shock they received with the drastic change in water conditions led to their demise.

Watch your remaining fish closely. Since you poured the rosies' water into your tank, it's possible you introduced something in there. It's always a good practice to quarantine fish for at least a month before adding them to an established tank with fish. Especially if they're feeder fish, or wild-caught fish, like natives.

If you have a test kit, test for nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia. All those dead fish will have greatly polluted your tank, and it'd be a good idea to do more water changes.

Sorry about your fishies. :(

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