Dead Fish

[not1min]

Feed my fish Wednesday morning the water was very clear and the fish seemed to be just fine. Got home around 6:30pm my tank was very cloudy. I had 9 dead yellow labs, 5 of them was 5-6 inches and the others was about 2-3 inches. They were not bloated. I removed all the rocks to get all the other fish that survived out and placed them in another tank that I had setup. They are all doing fine.

Tested the nitrates,nitrites and ammonia today but I do not know where my card is so I took a picture of the tubes and tank.


tank still cloudy today




Also noticed today that my tank is full of snails and I had a few assassin snails in the tank but I do not see them. Oops found a live fish and bn pleco when I was looking for the assassin snails

Should I just break the tank down, replace the substrate (tarpedo sand) and bleach everything else and start over fresh.

Tank has been setup for 10 months.
56 gallon tank
AC70 HOB w/sponge/purigen/biomax
Koralia 750gph
Powersweep Powerhead
Dual sponge filters
Temp 78

[jwh0818]

This happened to me also like 2 days ago. All 3 of my oscars died and my jack. Im clueless, only my pleco survived

[jwh0818]

Your results are as followed

1st tube- purple- nitrite-5.0+ppm
2nd tube-yellow-nitrate-0ppm
3rd tube-green-ammo-2.0ppm-4.0ppm

Here is a pic
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[jwh0818]

Your tank isn't cycled according to the chart. Maybe you should try and test again or just do a water change and get some cycling fish or use ammonia

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[Bedlamer]

I've been puzzling over this thread. Do you happen to remember which tube top/middle/bottom corresponded to each test? I've been holding up my card to my monitor and trying to figure out what fits. I know that my color settings on my monitor maybe skewing things from their actual colors. I have to disagree with jwh0818s assessment on the tests. The tank has been running for 10 months and had a fairly high bio-load and enough rock and substrate to stand in for the live rock in a marine tank (I checked out the rest of the pics in the album) plus a fair sized HOB and 2 sponge filters. There is no way the tank isn't fully cycled--but of course with 9 dead fish in there for maybe 8 plus hours we would expect a possible ammonia or nitrite spike. I agree it is always an excellent first step to do a massive water change if something weird is going on that is harming your fish--the water change will temporarily at least fix most issues. The nitrate test is the one that is the hardest to do properly. I can't believe that tank has 0 nitrates--local tap water is higher. (You can't have high ammonia and nitrite without it being converted to nitrate in a mature tank) So unless not1min is running a denitrifing reactor (very uncommon), had a massively planted tank (it didn't appear to be planted) or doing massive water changes with RO/DI water on a fresh water tank (which would be very unusual) the nitrate test using the API test kit should be somewhere between orange to red to whatever color the 160 ppm nitrate is (burgundy-ish?)--however none of the tubes show that color. I'm wondering is the teal blue tube showing 0ppm nitrite (it doesn't seem to be green enough to correspond to the ammonia test but is also a bit darker than I’m used to seeing for the light blue of the 0 ppm nitrite test?) and the yellow tube showing 0 ppm ammonia?--but that doesn't explain the lavender tube--which doesn't match anything on my color card. None of these tubes show a pH test right? Something doesn't add up on the colors of the tests. I’m a bit stumped.

[Bedlamer]

Did your house have an extended power outage that day? Were all the clocks flashing when you got home? I'm trying to think what killed off all of your fish so quickly with no apparent cause. The temperature was fine--you didn't cook them (I've done that one). Is there a possibility a small child dumped something in there? (I had a cousin's tank succumb to that) The most likely cause for the cloudiness is maybe a bacterial bloom resulting from all the dead fish--so it might be a symptom of your problem and not necessarily the cause of their demise. Hopefully some of the other member’s on here will have some more insights on this. I’m sorry you lost so many fish btw.
To get rid of all those squiggly white line artifacts in your tank pictures, turn off all your pumps and filters while you are snapping your pics.

[not1min]

Bedlamer, I will redo the test this evening when I get home, label the tubes and repost. I have not done anything to this tank but removed the fish that survived. No, I did not have a power outage on the day the fish died nor do I have any small children.
I now have a snail infestation. Should I just break the tank down, replace the substrate (tarpedo sand) and bleach everything else and start over fresh.

[Totenkampf]

your bacterial colony in the tank will be sufficient to regulate the "typical" bioload only. there are typically not so many extra to handle a spike. my daughter dropped a can of food in one tank and didnt tell me and the results were exactly like this. huge bacterial bloom, high nitrites and ammonia with no nitrates at first, it basically had to recycle to contain the massive increase in organics. the snails being at the top of the tank also indicate poor oxygen which is common during cycling. if it were me, i would might consider allowing it to finish cycling while i looked into what could have caused it. its very odd for a spike like this to just happen in a mature tank. if you need to get the fish back into the tank then you could consider rinsing the substrate really well in dechlorinized room temp water so that you dont kill off the good bugs. that way you could do a good cleaning and cycle it more quickly.

[aquabee]

Sorry to hear this happened, Letta. I know how much you love those yellow labs!

I agree with everything everyone said, esp that last post. I would just add that when you end up re-cycling and adding your fish back into the tank, dose Stability with it. I've even used Stability to "treat" excess bio-load, which is what your tank seems to be going through, and the parameters stabilized within 3 days. And an extra air stone for a week or so, just while things settle, won't hurt either. Good luck, lady.

[armthehomeless]

Maybe i'm missing this, but how long was your tank set up for? Did you do anything in the 2 days prior to the disaster?

Sorry to hear about your loss.

[aquabee]

I think this particular tank was set up for quite some time, at least several months if not longer... I could be wrong though. Cuz she was talking about it back in October at the meeting at Dave's house, and it was already set up at that time.

[Totenkampf]

well if you can determine the cause of the problem and fix it, I currently have a pair of nice looking adult yellow labs for sale. Its not the same as the large group but its a start. If it also turns out to be just a physical problem and not parasites then i could help you get rid of some of those MTS too. I have yet to see an assassin chase down its prey muhahahaha

[not1min]

Maybe i'm missing this, but how long was your tank set up for? Did you do anything in the 2 days prior to the disaster?

Sorry to hear about your loss.

Tim, this tank have been setup for 10 months. I did not do anything in the last two days. I am puzzled trying to figure out what happened.

[not1min]

I retested the water and have not done anything else to the tank.



left to right - nitrite, nitrate, ammonia, ph, ph high range.

This weekend I will tear down the tank because it is infested with those snails and I do not know the root cause of the problem. I am going to put the Marineland 350 HOB that is currently on my 30 to speed up the cycling.

B: The yellow labs are my babies that was the first fish I bought off the Box after I joined in Feb. 2011.

Thanks to all of you for your reponses.

[Totenkampf]

i am definately interested to hear about the cause if you can determine it, even if the spike was a symptom and not a cause it seems unlikely that one dead fish would trigger other deaths and a bacterial bloom so quickly. unless the heater malfunctioned of course