Bad weekend for my fish..

[asudavew]

I usually do my water changes every weekend.

Saturday I changed about 50% of the water in my 55 gallon
Ammonia - 0, Nitrite- 0, nitrate - 10

I used a dechlorinator and slowly pumped the water into the tank.

The tank has an Oscar, BP, algae eater, 5 tiger barbs, and a JD.
(I Know.. but my 125 gallon is being resealed and will begin cycling in about 3 weeks)

Anyways.. after the tank was refilled everything looked fine.
I watched it for about 20 minutes or so.

Then about 30 minutes after that I checked on the tank again.
The tiger barbs were gone, and tiger barbs don't hide often. I was worried, so I asked my wife to help me look. Then we spotted the dead fish. One on the bottom, dead. Two stuck to the filter, dead. One still living(the biggest) and one unaccounted for. The last one disappeared during the night. I can not find the 2 dead ones. I moved everything around but no luck. It's possible the Oscar ate them, but I am not sure.

I didn't know what was going on. The other fish, especially the BP, were gasping for air. I figured it was chlorine poisoning, and immediately added a 20ml dose to the filter.

They began behaving "normally" within 20 minutes or so. The Bp, Oscar, JD, and Algae eater are fine today (48 hours later)

What a I think happened: The dechlorinator has a cap that measures the dose for the water. I think I used the side of the cap that screws onto the bottle and not the measuring side. That would of been about half the recommended amount.

Sorry for such a long posting, but would this be consistent with chlorine poisoning, or could temperature have something to do with it?



Dave

 

[CaptainAhab]

Was the PWC water temperature matched or at least close? If you can't find those fish watch out for a possible ammonia spike if they haven't been eaten.

Could be the chlorine but then it would still be in there unless you redosed again when you found them dead. Big swings in water temp and parms can cause a big shock

 

[asudavew]

Yeah I added chlorine remover to the filter about 20 ml.

I should have checked the temperature of the water, but since I never had a problem before.. (do we all say that after we DO have a problem?) I do add the water slowly, about 1/2 gallon per minute. But once the tank was full the temperature was at 78, the same as before.

Thanks for the heads up! I've been checking the ammonia often just waiting for a spike.

Hopefully they will all be in good shape when I get home tonight.

The water was cloudy as heck the next day. I added carbon, lots of it to the filter.
It was better this morning.

So if the water was to cold, would it kill fish that fast?

 

[CaptainAhab]

It would have to be REALLY cold.. Unless you keep the tank very warm a final 78 seems fine. I've left my heater off (long story) a couple times and seen my temp drop into the very low 70's.. My fish got very listless but once I started removing and replacing with warmer water they all bounced back. Never lost one.

You didn't stir anything up on the bottom? Clean/replace the filter pads etc? The cloudy water almost sounds like a bacteria bloom.

Perhaps it was the lower dechlor

 

[asudavew]

I vacuumed the gravel and rinsed out the filters. But I rinsed them in the water that I drained from the tank.

I also removed a plant bulb that was in the gravel for a few weeks, but it never sprouted.

Thanks for your help!

Dave