Am I Alone? If Not...Please Share Your Stories & Experiences

[ArtesiaWells]

I recently lost a 60 gallon goldfish tank to a horrendous bacterial infection of some kind (please see the unhealthy fish section of the forum for my various threads as a background on the situation), which spread very quickly and killed two of my beloved fancytails -- a gorgeous, veiltailed Red Cap Oranda and a Chocolate/Gold Fantail -- back to back. The problems began when we introduced a new young, small Red Cap Oranda to the tank and he subsequently attacked the two other established goldies, opening bad wounds on their anal cavities thus allowing a bacterial infection from improperly cared for water conditions to enter. Also in this 60 gallon was a young, small Black Moor who has unbelievably survived the infection, and who we have moved into a 2-gallon "Marina Cool 7" kid's startup goldfish tank with fresh, breathable water to get her out of the infected tank and water just until we figure out what we are going to do. The aggressive Red Cap has also been moved to a 10 gallon, which has been cycled, and he now has two tankmates with him as well.

Now that the main tank has crashed, we are picking up the pieces and cleaning it out little by little, because it's a disgusting mess due to the water conditions, and I wanted to know if there is anyone else who can relate to this and if you can share some of your feelings and insight...

Has anyone else lost a tank to a breakout of some kind, and lost beloved fish you became really attached to? If so, did you start over...and what were your steps? Did you keep the same kinds of fish again?

Please tell me I'm not alone in all this!

 

[ReidILewis]

Someone poisoned my Koi pond before with soap.. I guess that is related to your story. After I scooped out some expensive dead Koi, I put feeder goldies in it. After 2 years, its infested with them now, I'm planning to clean it out, sell the goldies and put more Koi in it using the money from the goldies.

 

[Tetra1990]

Well, mine happened in a 29. At the time I had: 6 tiger barbs, 3 glass, 1 rosy barb, a bristle nosed Pleco and a striped peacock eel. I decided to add 2 more tigers, bad mistake! One of my new tbs was a tiny guy who developed a very aggressive bout of fin rot. Within days and before I knew what it was, this was my first time with any type of fish sickness, all my fish except my eel were belly up. The silver lining in all of this was that I wanted to get sand and was dreading taking everyone out. So with no fish I broke down everything and started fresh.

 

[tarpon]

My entire 30 gallon stock got fried by a defective heater..the ones that didn't die had to be put down. My big beautiful marble angel was left blind with cloudy eyes and fins that looked like they had melted. I had to euthanize my breeding pair of angels.
I lost: 1 bristlenose pleco
2 angelfish
3Cory cats
4-5 Glass catfish.


I started over but only have 2 new angels in the tank by themselves and they've been getting along good.

 

[Mumma.of.two]

I lost my whole 10g stock including a 5yo betta to collumnaris. I also lost 3 bettas in one night to ghost shrimp attacks. its not fun watching them drop one by one but it's one of those things many of us unfortunately have to go through.

 

[twoodrough]

When I first started and had an ick outbreak I had a fish store person tell me how to dose a tank incorrectly. In one day I watched about 9 fish die. It was horrible. I had only been in this about 2 weeks, hadn't found this forum yet, and didn't understand to do water changes to get the medicine out. It was a real bummer. Since then I have downsized. If my tank crashes I will lose a maximum of 6 fish.

 

[Autumnsky]

I read through your original post from when you had the sickness, I had just lost a huge beautiful Oranda, one I had adopted which apparently had already been not well and went through three bouts of illness, and hundreds upon hundreds if not thousands of gallons of manual water changes. Very, very sad.

My worst was probably twelve years ago and I went through a number of one after another tank problems, losing most of three tanks of fish.

We think it was from moving/stress and different water source, then Ick and probably Ick again,

Right before the last round of Ick, our favorite fish, which was a native catfish my little daughter and her friend caught while out on a walk 1 1/2 inches long, from a ditch, tragically died.

I had a native tank at the time. "Cattie" (Cat-E), at her passing, was almost 18 inches long when my air pump went out and she just couldn't make it after all the other stresses and passed. It was one of the hardest experiences ever. My three daughters and I spent several days crying our eyes out. We had that fish for probably 3-4 years and we really loved it a lot since it was a tiny baby.

I feel your pain.

On a lighter note, kids 16-23, still will not ever eat Catfish, they say for the rest of their lives. lol

 

[ArtesiaWells]

My goodness, everyone...thank you for sharing those heartwrenching stories...I truly don't feel like I'm alone now...

Please continue to post any other stories that can help all of us relate...

 

[spoonman]

My story is a little different. It was my fault. I was cleaning the 2 canister filters on my 140 and mixed up the buckets of water. I had a bucket of water from the tank and one of untreated tap water. I washed all the media in the tap water accidentally. The next morning I woke up to 14 dead cichlids and a couple others. I had a scat that was about 8", a jack dempsey that was about 6" long and several others. All at my hand. Re-cycled the tank and started over. Very hard to deal with when it was my mistake that caused it. Much more emotional burying a fish that is too large to flush...

 

[ArtesiaWells]

Indeed, Spoon; this crash of our goldfish tank was my fault, as well, in many respects, perhaps in all respects -- we were not doing the regular gravel vacumming, which lead to a buildup of a toxic bacterial infestation under the substrate (invisible to us because it settled and was hiding), and when we bought this new young Oranda and introduced him to the tank, he began nipping and biting at the older, larger established fantails, opening wounds on their skins which allowed the bacterial infection to grab hold and wipe them out. My wife and I feel guilty for not only, in retrospect and hindsight now, buying this new Red Cap because HE is the one that caused the problems, but also for allowing the tank to get so out of control in terms of water maintenance; we should have, though, yanked that aggressive fish out right away when we saw what he was doing to the other two, but we waited because we thought that maybe it was a mating ritual of some kind and he was trying to impregnate them...by the time we isolated that one and began medicating the other two, it was too late.

We feel SO guilty that WE were responsible for killing those goldies, and our hearts are absolutely BROKEN. We don't really know how to cope with it save for moving on and trying to start over...

 

[RussellC]

We feel SO guilty that WE were responsible for killing those goldies, and our hearts are absolutely BROKEN. We don't really know how to cope with it save for moving on and trying to start over...

In my tank at home I have a two year old comet goldfish that's all of two to two and a half inches long. At that age, said fish should be *much* bigger! The fish's growth has been severely stunted due to being kept in a 1.5 gallon tank for almost two years.

Not that long ago, we lost our betta... once an absolutely gorgeous halfmoon who was constantly plagued by bout after bout of fin rot, until, when he passed, those beautiful fins were not much more than stubs -- nothing like the glorious flowing colorful fins they once were and should have been.

I am responsible... both fish, due to my ignorance, suffered through bout after bout of ammonia and nitrite poisoning (though I didn't know, because I didn't test the water). Both lived in environments that were too small for them - especially the goldfish.

It's not an easy realization to come to.

But I'm here, and I'm actively educating myself and learning to be a better caretaker for the surviving comet (and its tankmates) -- and maybe by staying here, and sharing my experiences, good and not so good, I might avoid mistakes in the future, and help others avoid some of the mistakes I've made.

I think that's what matters now.

Good luck!

 

[ArtesiaWells]

Thank you for sharing your experiences, Russell; indeed, I am so sorry about your Betta...it seems you cared for him the way we did our fantails...

 

[George9]

I've lost many fish due to ich outbreaks and most recently, a mini cycle I won't go into details, it really does suck, but its a learning experiece

 

[ArtesiaWells]

Thank you, George; I am sorry for your loss, as well...

Were you really connected to your fish? How long did you have them?

I suppose this is all a learning experience, and that's all we can take from it (kind of like relationships that have gone sour)...

 

[George9]

Thank you, George; I am sorry for your loss, as well...

Were you really connected to your fish? How long did you have them?

I suppose this is all a learning experience, and that's all we can take from it (kind of like relationships that have gone sour)...

One of them I had a connection with, he was a really cool apisto The others were tetras, which are fish that find hard to connect with lol I only had them for a few months, I would feel worse if I had them for years.

 

[ArtesiaWells]

Thanks.

 

[Alyxx]

A couple years ago I had a wonderful breeding pair of angelfish. Not long after I got them, they spawned, the eggs got a fungus, then they got a fungus. I treated their tank for over a month, but they pulled through. They spawned for me a few times, and I managed to raise one of their fry to almost the size of a quarter. Would have had more, but they loved to eat their eggs. Anyway, not long after I moved their baby into their tank with them, I made the mistake of picking up some more juvenile angels, hoping to find a mate for the young one.
First one of the new ones died, then another, then my precious baby angel, and then the adults got sick. I medicated, I changed the water like crazy, but one by one I lost all of my angels. I was devastated. I had those fish for a year, I saved them from one infection, I raised their little baby, and then I killed them introducing bad stock. The sad thing is, I had a QT set up but I didn't use it. I trusted the fish to be healthy, they looked healthy. It was my fault. But, I cleaned the tank up, let it lie fallow for a while, and then I got my pufferfish, which I adore. I'm glad I didn't let myself give up on fish, but instead picked the pieces up and started over.

 

[ArtesiaWells]

A couple years ago I had a wonderful breeding pair of angelfish. Not long after I got them, they spawned, the eggs got a fungus, then they got a fungus. I treated their tank for over a month, but they pulled through. They spawned for me a few times, and I managed to raise one of their fry to almost the size of a quarter. Would have had more, but they loved to eat their eggs. Anyway, not long after I moved their baby into their tank with them, I made the mistake of picking up some more juvenile angels, hoping to find a mate for the young one.
First one of the new ones died, then another, then my precious baby angel, and then the adults got sick. I medicated, I changed the water like crazy, but one by one I lost all of my angels. I was devastated. I had those fish for a year, I saved them from one infection, I raised their little baby, and then I killed them introducing bad stock. The sad thing is, I had a QT set up but I didn't use it. I trusted the fish to be healthy, they looked healthy. It was my fault. But, I cleaned the tank up, let it lie fallow for a while, and then I got my pufferfish, which I adore. I'm glad I didn't let myself give up on fish, but instead picked the pieces up and started over.

Thank you so much for sharing your (unfortunate) experiences, Alyxx -- indeed, Angels are gorgeous and I would want a tank of them if I was going to do tropicals. I loved Angels and always bought them when I kept tropicals years ago when I was young -- we could never keep them healthy, though, no matter how hard we tried (my dad and me)...on top of that, there was always some kind of harassment issue between other species like Gouramis who would chase the Angels to death, eventually nipping at their fins and barbs until they were nothing more than floating torsos the next morning. Heartbreaking. So I know how you feel...

We recently went through this with our goldfish tank; before long, a bacterial infection took hold and killed both my beloved fantails that we basically raised since they were small for two and a half years...they were getting big, and then this sickness hit the tank due to a newly introduced Red Cap Oranda who attacked the two established goldies, opening wounds on their rear ends and letting the infection in.

But, like you, we're starting over; we're not quite sure how this is going to play out yet, but we're giving it a chance...

 

[Autumnsky]

Ignorance is not bliss, that is for sure.

I have kept fish for most of 40 years but didn't know very much until recently, mostly from here. Even reading books, there seemed to be a disconnect from reading about it to actually keeping the fish. AND keeping the fish in a healthy environment. I am still making mistakes and it SUCKS. Lots of learning by doing and recovering from accidents and mistakes.

Sorry to hear of the losses and fishie suffering. If we didn't care we wouldn't be here learning to make it better.

 

[ArtesiaWells]

Thank you, Autumn.

If there is one thing I learned through all the pain and loss in this hobby, it's to keep things simple -- use a good water conditioner (Seachem Prime particularly because it's so concentrated), do water changes and do your gravel vaccs...that's pretty much it, save for having good filtration.