Sudden death of most the tank.

[ScottS]

20 gallon tank
6 cardinals
1 diamond head (neon tetra variation)
5 black phantoms
1 clown pleco

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20ppm
GH 75
PH 7.8 (I know that's high, but it's been that way for all years)
Temp 78F
Reverse Osmosis Water only

The Cardinals were over 5 years old, the Black Phantoms, diamond head and pleco were two weeks in the tank.

I went home from work late Friday. Tank is in the office and all inhabitants looked to be eating the freeze dried tubifex worms. None were lethargic. I had to come into my office Saturday night and when I looked into the tank, and every cardinal is dead, at least 1 Phantom is dead and another Phantom is near death sitting upside down in the tank.

All fish still had great color when I netted them out. It appears the 2 Phantoms I've seen may have ich, but none of the dead fish show any evidence of ich and I know for certain the Cardinals looked to be in good health yesterday. The dead one eyes are cloudy and bugged out, but I wonder if that has more to do with being dead than being related to the cause of death.

I don't get it... at all.

 

[Zagz]

Is there any chance a contaminant got into the tank? Do a water change and if you don't have an airstone I would add one.

 

[rugie]

perhaps the power was off for several hours and the dissolved oxygen dropped to a very low level. do you have forced air heating vents in the room where the tank is?

 

[ScottS]

I should know better. I should have quarantined the new fish. I moved the tank to my office and had less extra space, so I didn't setup my old 5 gallon quarantine tank. That, and the heater in the quarantine tank is out of commission and the whole setup is in storage since we're trying to move. I was so proud to have kept Cardinal Tetras alive for 5+ years. Argh!

I bought them at a very reputable dealer and didn't think twice about it. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I'm just surprised ich would kill so many within the same hours, and the fish that brought the ich to the tank had a better survival rate, though I suspect the rest will be dead soon. I started upping the temp, added some generic meds and will go back to work tomorrow with some salt and to kick the thermostat up some more to save what's left in the tank. I guess I'll go pick up my old tank from storage too. I'm such an idiot.

 

[ScottS]

Is it too early to claim the "idiot of the year" award? Saturday night, I turned off the power strip so I could net out two tetras stuck to the filter intake. I then cranked the heater up a few degrees toward 86 (was going to crank it up to 86 on Monday morning). However, with everything else going on at work, I forgot to turn the power strip back on. So no heat against an outside wall, the tank was under 70 and whatever the ich didn't kill, the 65F temp probably did.

 

[CTD]

Thats too bad sorry about your recent bad luck

 

[ScottS]

Thats too bad sorry about your recent absent-mindedness.

Fixed it for you. Thanks anyway. I guess I'll clean the bottom, heat up the tank add some salt and do some big water changes and start from scratch.

 

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

Make sure you do some research on your fish you have to make sure they are able to with stand salt water, some fish can't.

 

[ScottS]

Make sure you do some research on your fish you have to make sure they are able to with stand salt water, some fish can't.

Usually dead fish are pretty indifferent.