The Miraculous Hillstream Loach

[TheManichaean]

Part 1:
Last night, I knew my Hillstream Loach had died. I held him in my hands, rigid and unmoving. My wife and I just moved the tank to our new home, and he seemed to have died from the trauma.

We'd raised the little guy over two years from the size of a tack's head to just shy of a silver dollar. I was ready to bury him, but she said "No, just put him in the tank. Maybe he'll be OK." I watched him float down the tank, lifeless, and I had to turn away.

This morning, my wife woke me up at 5am...and he's alive! It's like nothing happened at all, he's just chilling out on the wall, acting cool as usual! YEAH!

Part 2:
Ok on a more serious note, I need help. This is my first aquarium move, and it didn't go so well. The tank is two years old, and we've had no problems (well there was an overly hungry botia loach...) up until now. I followed the advice I found on this site and in my books, but I still lost fish.

The move for the equipment was fine, but my fish started dying in the bucket. I filled a five gallon bucket with tank water, and I gently netted the fish into it. While we finished the setup and move, I kept the bucket in warm, dark areas and left a loose, dark bag over the top to keep them calm.

Approximately 2 hours after entering the bucket, fish started dying. I lost 1 Congo Tetra, 2 Bloodfin Tetras, one Australian Rainbow, and (so I thought) my Hillstream Loach. All told, tank setup was complete and fish replaced into the tank 3 hours after entering the bucket.

Realizing the serious problems my fish were having, I made the decision to put them directly into the tank, without testing levels. I decided that ANY tank condition would be better than the bucket disaster.

Happily, this morning in the tank, the fish seem fine.

Please, I need some frank criticism--I' don't ever want to watch them die in a bucket again.

Possible mistakes:
1. Too many fish in one five gallon bucket: I knew 5 gallons was small, but I figured that this group of peaceful community fish would be fine for a couple hours.

2. No heater: I maintain my tank at 78 Fahrenheit, but I didn't put a heater in the bucket. I kept it away from cold windows, but I was concerned about putting a 100-gallon rated heater in a 5 gallon bucket. I thought it could much more easily cook the fish than keep them alive.

3. Chemicals in bucket: I usually use small 2.5 gal buckets for tank work, but I bought these 5 gallon buckets yesterday from Home Depot. They looked clean and I rinsed them out in the shower, but maybe I didn't clean them enough.

Any help is appreciated.

[kmgriff72]

Did you acclimate them to the water of the 5 gallon bucket or just put them in there? Do you know exactly what the temperature was in the bucket (if you already posted this sorry I missed it). Maybe having that many fish in a 5 gallon and no aggitation in the bucket made the water not have as much oxygen as it needed for all of those fish. Then I may be wrong about it all, just guessing.

[Ky'smommy]

firstly the fish wouldnt need to be acclimated to the 5g bucket of water because it was taken out of the tank they live in. same water.. same everything.
i moved many fish of many sizes in 5gallon buckets..lots of fish in one. The fish were big too. I had no problems. No heater no anything and all fish were fine.
It could have just been stress maybe..
esspecially if it was for three hours..
Just a thought how far away were the houses?
Did you pack your tank after everything else and before everything else at the new house.

[TheManichaean]

Originally Posted by kmgriff72

Did you acclimate them to the water of the 5 gallon bucket or just put them in there? Do you know exactly what the temperature was in the bucket (if you already posted this sorry I missed it). Maybe having that many fish in a 5 gallon and no aggitation in the bucket made the water not have as much oxygen as it needed for all of those fish. Then I may be wrong about it all, just guessing.

Thanks--I used existing tank water to fill the bucket, so the temp & chemical balance would be identical to the tank. Agitation could definitely be the issue, maybe 3 hours with so many fish was just too much in a 5 gallon.

I'm thinking that I should have at least used multiple buckets for the fish, trying to separate the types as best I could.

Along those lines, my tank normally runs a medium-fast current, so the angelfish stays in quiet corners. In the placid bucket waters, he could have become a bully too, but 3 hours seems like a stretch for him to do major damage.

[kmgriff72]

Sorry, missed the part about using the tank water. I still think maybe it was an areation issue or there was an ammonia spike from all the fish along with the stress issue and it just got the best of them.

[coldmachineUK]

I think it's probably stress tbh, which there's not much you can do about. In hindsight I'd have used more buckets if it was me (I keep a personal collection of about 10 in the shed, which have come in handy no end!). I think you cleaned them ok, a rinse should have been fine if they were new.

3 hours is a fair whack of time to be without oxygen, but at the same time fish get shipped from Asia and so on in terrible conditions sometimes and arrive ok in the end. So, I'm not sure it'd be that either.

I can only think stress brought on by a very very small environment.

I'm really glad to hear your hillstream is doing ok now though, but sorry to hear about the other losses

[TheManichaean]

Originally Posted by coldmachineUK

I think it's probably stress tbh, which there's not much you can do about. In hindsight I'd have used more buckets if it was me (I keep a personal collection of about 10 in the shed, which have come in handy no end!). I think you cleaned them ok, a rinse should have been fine if they were new.

I agree that it was the stress, and more buckets would have been the best course. That would mitigate any possible contaminated bucket scenarios, and separating out the species would doubtless help.

I'm really glad to hear your hillstream is doing ok now though, but sorry to hear about the other losses

Thank you

Happily all the little beasties seem fine now, a week later. Tough little guys, I owe them all a Daphnia treat.