Bad day yesterday

[HAVAMAL]

Did a water change yesterday on my main tank, and lost most of my fish, it's a 65g tank I took out 10g of water, chlorine removed, water temp 82°, nitrites and nitrates both at 0 ph was down around 6.0 and ammonia is at 0.25 so I'm guessing here on this one that the raise in ph got them ??
It's blowing my mind, my four silver dollars, two of my larger clown loach, two zebra danios, dead, haven't been able to find my black ghost knife yet?
I'm letting the tank run for awhile before I add any more fish to the tank, I want the ammonia level at zero before anything else goes in, weird part of it all I had just been talking to a friend of a friend who bought a tank and severely overstocked it and then wondered why her fish were dying when I noticed mine were starting to swim upside down and hanging out at the top.
Just really irritated over all of this!

 

[JoeBob]

Well that just SUX! Sorry for your losses, it sounds like you had an ammonia spike for some reason to me. If it were my tank, I'd do about a 40-50% pwc and do like you said and wait for the levels to re-stabilise and see what happens. Hope it works out for you

 

[HAVAMAL]

Thanks, I've already done another 10g water change, I'm going to pickup a better ph stabilizer then slowly rebuild my stock again.

 

[jetajockey]

Are you sure nothing else got into the tank? .25 ammonia at 6.0 ph is not close to toxic.

I'd do a much bigger water change, 75% or more in the case that some contaminant made it's way in.

 

[BakerBoy17]

You should be adding anything to keep the ph stable. That could get them. And how long has this tank been up? It doesn't sound like it is cycled because you have no nitrates

 

[HAVAMAL]

Are you sure nothing else got into the tank? .25 ammonia at 6.0 ph is not close to toxic.

I'd do a much bigger water change, 75% or more in the case that some contaminant made it's way in.

Thought about that but my buckets are clean, tanks been running for two years now, my plants keep the nitrates low.

 

[jetajockey]

You could also check your water source, it's a long shot but sometimes they do stuff with the water system.

Ammonia poisoning doesn't just kill off fish like that, even if it were toxic at that level.

 

[HAVAMAL]

You could also check your water source, it's a long shot but sometimes they do stuff with the water system.

Ammonia poisoning doesn't just kill off fish like that, even if it were toxic at that level.

Thought about that too great minds think alike.

 

[skiweeangel]

I was talking with one of my neighbors who used to keep fish. He said something like this happened to his twice and the second time he called the municipal water guys and they told him the had just "flushed the system.". They took his name and number and called him the day before they were going to do anything to the system again. I think I need to sign up myself.

 

[redsea]

Sorry about your losses.......

 

[HAVAMAL]

Thanks to all, I've been a fish keeper for around 40 years now and it just amazes and dumfounds me when this happens, I don't like second guessing myself.
But it also shows that we can not control everything in life no matter how hard we try, I've never agreed with taking creatures out of their natural environments and I guess that's part of the reason I am a fish keeper because I try to give the fish a better home than the LFS, so it just really disturbs me when I fail.

 

[HAVAMAL]

Well thinking that my test kit is two years old I got a hunch that they may be no good anymore, so I went and had my water tested, ammonia was fine but ph has dropped back down below 6.0, nitrate is 50 and nitrite is at 3.0, so I bought some aquarium salt and using a baking soda mixture to raise and buffer my ph,I'll wait a couple weeks before introducing new stock.

 

[Tigroscr]

So sorry to hear this about your fish!! :-( not even one made it? Did you find your black ghost knife?

 

[HAVAMAL]

So sorry to hear this about your fish!! :-( not even one made it? Did you find your black ghost knife?

Two albino cory's ( which you just can't kill them suckers ) LOL and my two smaller clown loach, I found the BGK under a rock earlier he didn't make it, so now I'll rebuild the neighborhood again and buy a new test kit.

 

[librarygirl]

Wow, so sorry about that!

The same thing happened to me the first month I had fish (did everything wrong, listened to the LFS, ended up with a fish-in cycle); was doing a pwc to get .25 or ammonia down and next morning all of the fish were dead. I still have no idea what happened except that the PH out of my tap is very high before it levels out so maybe the swing was too much for them, but even that I'm not sure would account for everything dying so quickly.

If you need to buffer your water for PH, you could try putting some crushed coral into a mesh bag or nylon stocking and running it inside your filter, it can really help and is safer than using a product to add to the water.

Again sorry about your fish.

 

[HAVAMAL]

So then just a bit ago I'm cleaning up the tank and I here a zzzzt zzzzt pop I look inside the cabinet and here comes some pretty little sparks and a thick cloud of smoke from my power strip and it's all wet down there! (I KNOW I AM NOT ALLOWED TO CUSS ON THIS FORUM BUT IM THINKING IT!!!! LOL)
WANTED TIME MACHINE TO GO BACK IN TIME JUST 48 HOURS!!!!!!!
One of my fittings from my canister filter got knocked loose, good thing I caught it!!!!!
KARMA I'VE BEEN REAL GOOD LATELY SO WHAZZUP?????

 

[millerb7]

So you think they somehow got zapped? Or are you still thinking something in the water?

Today I added 3 neon tetra's to my 5 gallon with my beta. All got along PERFECT. No flaring, no nipping, no nothing.

45 MINUTES LATER all 3 of my tetra's were dead. Water levels are all perfect, temp is 74 (a tad low... working on getting that up some more)... but the only thing I can think of is the tetra's reacted poorly to the high pH. I was unaware (and of course not told by the LFS) that they required a more acidic water. My water is around 7.5-8 pH normally.

I was so sad. I suppose that's partly my fault for not doing enough research.

 

[Pleco11771]

So then just a bit ago I'm cleaning up the tank and I here a zzzzt zzzzt pop I look inside the cabinet and here comes some pretty little sparks and a thick cloud of smoke from my power strip and it's all wet down there! (I KNOW I AM NOT ALLOWED TO CUSS ON THIS FORUM BUT IM THINKING IT!!!! LOL)
WANTED TIME MACHINE TO GO BACK IN TIME JUST 48 HOURS!!!!!!!
One of my fittings from my canister filter got knocked loose, good thing I caught it!!!!!
KARMA I'VE BEEN REAL GOOD LATELY SO WHAZZUP?????

Oh geez your having a lovely day! Is everything ok besides that? Anything damaged?

 

[HAVAMAL]

Lost a couple of power strips so not too bad, I'm wondering about the electricity thing now? Don't know if that could've done it or not?
Problem is fixed now so that's good, screwed up part is I'm supposed to go next weekend to wonderland camp to help clean up for the fall so I'm short on funds already so hopefully I can make it, I volunteer my time down theta a few times every year.

 

[HAVAMAL]

OMG I Just figured out what killed my bigger fish!
I had heard that zzzt the day the fish died but didn't put two and two together, my poor fishes were electrocuted!!!!
That explains why every now and then they went ape shoot and swam like crazy!!!