Well, I'm not proud about the following but I think we all learn from our mistakes and I'd thought I pass it on so someone does not repeats the same mistake I made.
It all started as a regular water change day for all my tanks, empty out about half the water out of them with a hose, de-chlorinate and refill the tanks, simple enough no?
Been doing this for about 40 years, all good no problems.
So I filled all my tanks and just sit back and wait a while, one of my tanks is an African tank 3 years going, 12 fish about 4 inches long.
Usually the Africans get active after a water change but not this time, just after a few minutes they all went down to the bottom on their side, within 15 minutes some are swimming erratically others are just laying there on the bottom breathing heavy.
All in all, took me about 20-30 minutes to realize I had not added water conditioner (de-chlorinator) to the African tank!
So I added a good amount of water conditioner but by then, the damage was done, miraculously 6 fish started to slowly get up from the bottom and very slowly started to swim around.
When it was all said and done, I had wiped out half my tank
Now I'm not so sensitive to fish death since I've been into tropical fish for so long and stuff happens but the point I guess I'm trying to pass on is how a careless mistake can spell disaster in the tank, that's the toughest part.
Peace.
It all started as a regular water change day for all my tanks, empty out about half the water out of them with a hose, de-chlorinate and refill the tanks, simple enough no?
Been doing this for about 40 years, all good no problems.
So I filled all my tanks and just sit back and wait a while, one of my tanks is an African tank 3 years going, 12 fish about 4 inches long.
Usually the Africans get active after a water change but not this time, just after a few minutes they all went down to the bottom on their side, within 15 minutes some are swimming erratically others are just laying there on the bottom breathing heavy.
All in all, took me about 20-30 minutes to realize I had not added water conditioner (de-chlorinator) to the African tank!
So I added a good amount of water conditioner but by then, the damage was done, miraculously 6 fish started to slowly get up from the bottom and very slowly started to swim around.
When it was all said and done, I had wiped out half my tank
Now I'm not so sensitive to fish death since I've been into tropical fish for so long and stuff happens but the point I guess I'm trying to pass on is how a careless mistake can spell disaster in the tank, that's the toughest part.
Peace.