Pump stopped & didn't filter for 3 days

[FriscoTX]

My pump stopped just as I was headed to get on a plane and be out of town for 3 days. I had no time to do anything except hope that the biologicals in the water would be sufficient to handle any waste. Well - it wasn't, and my ammonia levels are off the chart (about 7.0). I'm suprised that the fish are still alive, but they are and one think about goldies is they are a hearty fish.

I did an emergency 80% pwc and the ammonia level is down to 2.0. I plan to do 50% every day over the next week till the new pump gets it's biologicals back in gear (using the old filter). My nitrite levels are at about .25 so there is some biological activity.

Problem is one of the fish has a white spot in the middle of her pretty red head. Is that ick? Not sure myself - what would your game plan be if you were in my shoes.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I would do another large water change (75%) to get that ammonia level down. 2.0 is still too high. What does the white spot look like? Does it look like sugar?

 

[FriscoTX]

It's over - I ran to the store to get a new filter pump and came back and they were in their last moments...I did my best to put the new filter in and even added Ammo-Lock to the tank, but their little systems were in shut down mode.

 

[trotty]

sorry to hear about your loss.....

 

[DeFeKt]

shame to hear of your loss mate, hope you don't mind but i have a quick question or two...
how big a tank and how many fish are you talking about?

had no time to do anything except hope that the biologicals in the water would be sufficient to handle any waste.

I would have thought they would have been sufficient considering the tank was cycled and established, by the sounds of it..
It's just that i've had my tank(100gal) FULL of fish (50+) and running on a single airstone to aerate, for 1 1/2 weeks, before I had any sort of ammonia spike..
Are you sure your test kit is right? did you have any levels before you went away?

 

[DepotFish]

It doesn't sound like your tank was properly cycled. How big is the tank and how many fish? The white spot could have been new wen growth if its a variety with wen. The reason I only use underwater filters is because the biomedia is always exposed to the tank water. If something like an hob stopped running, the water would have no contact with the biomedia.

 

[FriscoTX]

sorry, I just got this, I've been on the road - these days my hobby isn't getting along with my schedule.

To answer the questions, I had a 10 gal tank running 2 filters and a few goldies of varying varieties all were of medium length. I was planning to move to a 50 Gal soon, I like you didn't think the ammonia would've spiked so high.

I should've stopped the feeding during the filtration loss. Goldfish are so dirty, I know my tank was too small to keep up with them, but I kept it going for a 1.5 years and just couldn't give up on those guys. My saddest moment was when our SharkTale was found lifeless on the bottom, I knew that if he was gone the rest would follow suit, he was kind of their Leader.

The wild thing about the whole ordeal, is that my beautiful Fantail really hung in there and I thought he was going to make it alive, but as soon as I took out the other two - I walked back into the room and he was floating at the top, I couldn't believe he went downhill so fast.

At this point, I'm keeping the tank running and adding food to the water to reestablish any bacteria loss.

 

[DepotFish]

You should have done water changes as soon as you found out that the pump had stopped too.