Total Disaster!

[Perriwrinkle]

Hello everyone. Long time no see. I'm here to find out what I did wrong. Let me explain...………….

50 gal. tank. One breed of fish (blue and black striped; can't remember the name). About 25, all sizes and ages. Time to break down the tank and clean. After it's all back up and running, I decide to add 'No More Algae' tabs. Instructions say, "1 tab per 10 gallons" so I dropped only 4 in because I had cleaned the tank of all algae (maybe). I just wanted to keep the algae at bay. It wasn't more than 5 minutes when I noticed my fish were swimming in circles, shaking and basically looking like they were in trouble. Another 5 minutes and ALL were laying on the bottom not breathing. I lost them all. I was crushed. What in the world did I do wrong? Ellana

[imagirlgeek]

Wow. I’m so sorry to hear this happened to you and your fish! I’ve never used this product, so I looked up the ingredients. Looks like the active ingredient is copper, and shouldn’t be used in soft or acidic water with low alkalinity. Is it possible your water is soft or acidic?

[Perriwrinkle]

The water was straight from my hose outside. Quickest way to fill it. I didn't test or treat it with anything else.

[imagirlgeek]

Okay, so here are a few things that came to mind that might take out an entire tank. I’ll just list them all since I don’t know your particular environment.
- How much of a water change did you do? Could be that the untreated water had chlorine/chloramine in it. But I would expect them to be gasping at the top, not spinning in circles.
- What was the water temp? Water hose water is usually pretty hot...here in the summer anyway.
- I would also test the water and see if there are any clues in your water parameters. I had an entire tank spike pH once. No idea why...never happened again.

[3kiwi]

- How much of a water change did you do? Could be that the untreated water had chlorine/chloramine in it. But I would expect them to be gasping at the top, not spinning in circles.
- What was the water temp? Water hose water is usually pretty hot...here in the summer anyway.

I'm also suspect the untreated water probably with hot water temperature.

[Ballinxalex]

i wanna say its the untreated water.

[mykokyfish]

1. Faucet water from city contained Chlorine treatment.
2. Algaecide is more like the chemical of No more algae tablet.

When you combine these 2 chemicals together is Dead sentence for the fish. Gill Burn /Deplete of Oxygen /Chemical Shock.