what the hell just happened?? :(

[laur94x]

So I bought my pearl gourami for my 138 litre tank about 2 weeks ago now, he'd been fine, other than looking a bit lonely the last few days. Well today I did a water change, about 20% using my gravel vac, put the new water back in with added tap safe like usual and checked the temperature before I added it, it was pretty much exactly the same. So I poured the water back in and everything was fine, 5 minutes later I came back in the room and my gourami was going insane. Like he couldn't swim properly and was totally freaking out shooting around and throwing himself about like mad, hitting the glass and then every time he relaxed hed sink to the bottom on his side or turn upside down. Then he sunk onto a plant leaf and died just like that, within minutes. What the hell happened?? I didn't hit his with anything as far as I know, his tank mates are guppies, cories and a bristlenose pleco so nothing particularly agressive and hed been absolutely fine. I checked my water levels and they're the same as before the water change. It was like his fins weren't working properly all of a sudden. My only idea is maybe he tried to jump or something and hurt himself. Any thoughts? Everything else in my 2 tanks seems fine :s

 

[Chris J]

I had a similar incident with 2 Red Tailed Tinfoil Barbs, but could never determine a cause for sure although my nitrates had gotten a little high in that tank prior to my water change. It doesn't sound like water quality was your issue though so I am intrigued as to what answers you will get. I'm sorry you lost a fish, I feel your pain.

 

[Zimmanski]

I had my angel freak out for a minute or so once, but that's because i was changing the substrate and didn't realize I cornered her for a second with my hand, I just turned the light and striped to reduce as much stress as possible. Did you shake your dechlorinator well before using it? Sometimes these chems settle in the bottle

 

[Buckfins]

Wow Laur.....sorry to hear that. Was looking forward to hearing about your adding a mate for your Pearl. Now I am curious as to what happened. Keep me posted.

 

[TheCommunityCichlid]

Sounds to me like he got poisoned by chlorine

 

[Tetra1990]

Had something similar happen to one of my harlequin Rasboras. Normal water change and everything. Soon it freaked out, dove to the bottom and started twitching.

 

[Rivercats]

I actually had that happen yesterday when doing the weekly WC in the Fluval Edge 6g. It was a cory. I have never had that happen in 30+ years and chalked it up to one of those maddening incidents that will never be explained. I use Prime and know it wasn't chlorine poisoning. In fact there was no reason and the other cories and betta were just fine.

 

[jlk]

Just to rule out any tap issues, I would start by testing your tap water and see if anything has changed. My tap varies quite bit across the board.

One other possible thought is the water itself. I am guessing your on a public water supply. If you check your water quality reports online, you will see an 'average' disinfectant level as well as the range it may vary on any given day. This range is usually quite large because additional disinfectant may be added after a big rain fall or if system maintenance is being performed. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing if your water supplier decided to double the disinfectant being used on a certain day or if they decided to switch from using chlorine to chloramine. Just a thought on what may have possibly happened. I am sorry about your fish

 

[Laser]

I find it hard to believe that it could be chlorine for two reasons. You used a dechlorinator that you have had success with and only 20% of the water was changed which is not a substantial concentration of chlorine for the overall volume of the tank to affect the fish in 5 minutes. Even if there were an unusually high amount of chlorine your tap safe would have detoxified some of it.

Does your tap safe detoxify chloramines?

I've known pearl gouramis to be skittish. Once I put my hand in the tank and my male darted and wedged itself between the heater and the glass. That doesn't really explain what happened to yours though.

 

[Teakwood]

I just had 2 thimasi dwarfs die today I set them up a tank with temp matched water to the tank they were in, used clean water and a full already cycled filter pad from another filter. After 2 hours they were dead. I think shock because I didn't technically acclimate them to the new tank. Totally a rookie mistake. I feel awful.

 

[Chris J]

I did forget to mention that I had 4 tinfoil barbs at the time and only two had any issues. All my Sa cichlids were fine as well.

 

[laur94x]

Thanks for all the replies. I have a guilty feeling it could have been my tap safe after what people what have said. I used to just add new water, say 20% for example and then I'd add enough tap safe to treat 20% into my tank, by the filter outlet. Then I read that was wrong and if I put water straight into my tank I have to treat the whole tank again with tap safe. This is the first time I've added tap safe to the individual buckets rather than whole tank and I've never had problems before I'm wondering if I measured it wrong this time and added a bit too much but would that have caused him to not be able to swim suddenly? And how comes all of my other fish seemed fine? Although I am yet to check on them this morning. Another possibility is when I tipped the bucket in the first bit went it quite fast until I managed to steady the bucket, maybe it pushed him into something although he did seem okay at first. I feel so guilty

 

[laur94x]

Just to rule out any tap issues, I would start by testing your tap water and see if anything has changed. My tap varies quite bit across the board.

One other possible thought is the water itself. I am guessing your on a public water supply. If you check your water quality reports online, you will see an 'average' disinfectant level as well as the range it may vary on any given day. This range is usually quite large because additional disinfectant may be added after a big rain fall or if system maintenance is being performed. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing if your water supplier decided to double the disinfectant being used on a certain day or if they decided to switch from using chlorine to chloramine. Just a thought on what may have possibly happened. I am sorry about your fish

Jlk, what do you test your tap water with? I have an API master test kit so it only does ammonia, nitrate, nitrite and PH.

See my tap water levels from them are always quite high, meaning my tank levels will never be perfect unless I find a money tree and can buy R0 water every week. My tap water levels are always
Ammonia - about 0.10 (a tiny bit above the 0 but below the 0.25)
Nitrite- 0
Nitrates- between 30-40ppm
And quite high PH, can't remember exactly what, about 8.2 I think.
Obviously meaning that no matter how many water changes I do, my levels are always this.

I understand my water is crappy but he'd been in a tank with these levels for 2 weeks quite happily so could a 20% water change really kill him instantly? Thanks

 

[Wiggles24]

One of my big New Guinea rainbows started all of s sudden to gasp at the surface within minutes It was upside down and minutes later dead. Just like that. Perfectly healthy fish til about 15 minutes before it died. No clue what happened water parameters were fine all the other fish are fine. Point is dont make yourself feel too bad, there are times when deaths happen unexpectedly and you just don't know why sorry for your loss though

 

[laur94x]

Thank you
Its just so horrible to watch, like it was such a dramatic way for my little fish to go I felt helpless cos I couldn't do anything other than turn the light off to try and calm him.
Well I just googled and a sign of chlorine poisening is clamped fins (does that mean he literally wouldn't be able to use them) the others signs it says are gasping for air and red gills, he didn't have red gills from what I could see. His mouth was basically open the whole time he was freaking out though, like it was stuck open or something, I've only just remembered that.

They're such beautiful fish but I'd be terrified of getting another one after this, or any new fish in fact!

 

[Wiggles24]

Clamped just means holding down, it's a general warning sign of a fish not feeling well.

 

[laur94x]

This is going to sound really stupid but surely if he couldn't swim couldn't he just unclamp them? Lol. Or is it completely involuntary? Also forgot to mention, its like his body had gone heavy, everytime he stopped freaking out he'd sink to the bottom and lay on his side or turn upside down :s

 

[Wiggles24]

Normal clamped fins and what your fish went through are very different things. It sounds like yours was having convulsions of some sort. Normal clamped fins don't effect their ability to swim because there isn't anything wrong with the fins they just don't feel well do their "posture"? For lack of a better word lol changes

 

[laur94x]

Well apparently there's no such thing as 'too much dechlorinator'. Well obviously there is, but basically if I accidently put in a ml or 2 too much it wouldn't make a difference. Apparently there's been tests showing that 10x and even 100x the recommended dose doesn't affect the fish, I'm most cases, although its not recommended lol. So that's that idea out of the window.

I can't see how I wouldn't have put in enough tap safe :s I thought if anything it would have maybe been a tiny bit too much. But even if it wasn't enough, it could have only been by a tiny bit because as far as I was aware I added the right amount :s could that really kill a fish from such a small water change? :S

 

[jlk]

Jlk, what do you test your tap water with? I have an API master test kit so it only does ammonia, nitrate, nitrite and PH.

See my tap water levels from them are always quite high, meaning my tank levels will never be perfect unless I find a money tree and can buy R0 water every week. My tap water levels are always
Ammonia - about 0.10 (a tiny bit above the 0 but below the 0.25)
Nitrite- 0
Nitrates- between 30-40ppm
And quite high PH, can't remember exactly what, about 8.2 I think.
Obviously meaning that no matter how many water changes I do, my levels are always this.

I understand my water is crappy but he'd been in a tank with these levels for 2 weeks quite happily so could a 20% water change really kill him instantly? Thanks

Odd- I answered this last night on my cell but I guess it did not go through. I use the same tests you do. At one point I did test for chlorine but this became cumbersome, so I no longer bother. My water is not great either and has enough chlorine in it that you can smell it when you turn the faucet on. I highly doubt it was an overdose of water conditioner that sickened your fish. Most conditioners can be safely dosed 5-10x the suggested dose without an issue and I use hefty amounts with my tap without a problem.

All I can suggest is perhaps you can consider switching to a different brand of water conditioner such as Prime. I am not positive what exactly happened here- my suggestions are only guesses and you will likely never have an absolute answer to this mystery. Hopefully, it was just a fluke occurence and does not happen again.