What a day (PWC of doom)

[flip_lx]

Well its been one of those 24hr periods where things just happen good then bad. It started just fine did my PWC yesterday, got to post office before the lines got bad, come home all 3 of my chromis are dead on my sand bed in an oddly nice diagonal line. Test water, salinity raised from 1.023 to 1.024 is only change mourn their loss and carry on the day, watch the Gold Cup games, walk past aquarium see my 2 adult mollies dead fish them out retest water same o same o.

Now i'm stuck trying to figuer out what happened in my tank. I currently call it the PWC of doom as it killed 5 adult fish but somehow my fry have all survived (which i figure is sorta good because if it was a wide water parameters shift they should have died first being less hardy, no?)

Its been an odd day bad in my aquatic life and good in the human aspect (hay for once i can actually cheer for the US in a soccer tourney and not look like a fool). I'm thinking time for a tear down and restart/cycle for the 29gal sw is coming up fast depending on what happens to the fry.

 

[tecwzrd]

Sorry to hear that

How long had you mixed the SW and how large of a pwc %? Other then the sg difference the ph could have been seriously off, had you checked to make sure your pwc water matched your tanks temp/ph/sg/alk?

Odd also that your fry survived as your correct, they should have been the most effected. Any mobile inverts i.e. hermits/snails/shrimp/ect..?

I take it you didn't stir up the sand bed at all either :| I've never had anything like you experienced but large (25+%) pwc that don't match the tanks parameters are usually the culprit if deaths are soon after since the fish don't have time to adjust and go into osmotic shock.

 

[flip_lx]

i did 5 gal change on 29 so its roughyl 20%, water had been "sitting" (in bucket evening temps with ph moving it) for all day sunday and most of monday. temp and all that matched but sg was a little over, which resulted in my raise but nothing drastic.

I pour onto rocks so as not to sitr the sand bad, when i vacumm i get all the gunk off the top with my siphon but my sand is its normal shade with no bad looking spots or anything.

its just a bit odd and frustrating but today the fry seem fine. we'll see how it goes just needed to vent some is all

 

[tecwzrd]

You did everything right, don't beat yourself up too hard since disasters can strike anytime for a variety of reasons. Only other possibility is some type of chemical (glass cleaner or something else) got in the tank that did them in although if that did happen then the fry should have died as well.

Fish can adjust to lower sg much easier then higher ones and if your 20% pwc raised your sg from 1.023 to 1.024 your pwc mix had to have had an sg of 1.028+ which is something you should have caught before doing your pwc.

Still the slight increase in total sg shouldn't have been that drastic of an effect.

I don't think you should start over with the tank unless you have more deaths IMO.

 

[melosu58]

Can someone move this to the SW side for more answers. No mod powers in the lounge.

 

[flip_lx]

bucket had about 1.025 which was high but i couldn't half and half like i had wanted to (my other bucket was being used for my FW)

~ how'd this end up in fw?

 

[BillyZ]

~ how'd this end up in fw?

(cause I gotta remember not to use my scroll wheel on the mouse after I've made a selection in a drop down.. i have a call out to a freshie mod to move this to SW where it belongs. sorry about that. )

When you were letting the water age, is it possible something could have spilled into the bucket? I agree with what Micah has been saying so far and I don't really see anything that stands out as a possible cause for that drastic of a fish loss.

 

[rich311k]

Moved to SW where it belongs.

 

[melosu58]

Thanks Rich

 

[flip_lx]

don't think anything could have mixed into it the bucket sat in the middle of my tub in a closed bathroom (to keep a certain furball out of the bucket). Live and learn i guess just a bit frustrating and needed to vent some. I'm still just at a loss of how the fry survive and the adults didn't. Just one of those things