TOTAL DUH *face palm* moment

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earhtmother

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Mar 22, 2010
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So a little back story - did a total rearrange & rehoming on my tanks so that neocardinia shrimp got their own 30g tank * guppies who had shared 70g with Amanos & neocardinia (sp) shrimp moved to 35g * tetras from 35g moved to 70 with Amano * tetra 35g tank was also suffering an issue because of cheap fabric plants deteriorating and leaving suspended crap in water so...I did a 95% wc DUH then put guppies in with a few new ones. Well as you would expect they started dying - I coudn't figure out why because I hadn't done any thing major I put it down to the new fish since the LFS had just finished dealing with a bad batch from the supplier - that was a week ago, today it finally struck me by changing out all the water I had started the cycle all over again & killed off all the guppies except 3 & my fry - so now I am stuck as to how to fix this with nowhere to move them to but really don't want anymore homicides on my conscience HELP
 
Quick additional info - I'm on a well - put foam media from another tank into the *new* tank, also changed out 2/3 water & replaced it with 1/3 fresh & 1/3 from other tanks (which are all doing well, even see baby shrimp not just juvies for the first time in ages)
 
Maybe there is something I'm missing here, but why would a water change, even one that large, cause your tank to re-cycle?
 
That is the only thing I can put this continual die off down to & of course all my test stuff is MIA as I hardly ever need it
 
Didn't - I'm on a well & never condition
Oh, of course. You had said you were on well water.

Well, I wonder if anything with the water had recently changed. If it was anything with nitrites and nitrates, I would imagine the tank should have still be able to handle them, but perhaps they were really high? I guess it's hard to say without testing.
 
You really cannot blame it on a cycle interruption without testing.
A couple things come to mind:
1. If the water has not been changed in a while and then a very large water change is performed, the change in TDS might be too much for the inhabitants.
2. Some conditioners will neutralize heavy metals found in source water.
 
I'm actually thinking it may have been the new guppies. The last time I bought new ones I was dumb and didn't quarantine, they both died and took out every adult I had in the tank within a few days. Especially if it didn't seem to kill your shrimp, which if it were the water itself it should be killing indiscriminately. My guess is with the guppies getting sick and dying, them rotting caused your ammonia to jump.
 
Yeah that was my original thought since every other tank is doing fine & even though the ones at the store seem to be fine I find not all fish like the transition from treated town/city water to our well water & for some reason guppies seem to be the worst although I have never had a major die off like this before which is why I didn't put the blame on the fish only
 
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