Am I Alone? If Not...Please Share Your Stories & Experiences

[ArtesiaWells]

So, is it safe to say I wasn't truly alone in this tank crash disaster where I needed to start over from scratch?

 

[Autumnsky]

You are not alone here!!!

 

[FallenRedeemer]

I had a 20 gallon tank that had been set up in my room since as long as I can remember. Then I ha it crash because I had a shy fish that I didn't see very often die in an ornament and I couldn't see it inside and didn't notice it missing because it rarely came out. The ammonia from the decomposing fish killed almost all my other fish. Only one survived. Transferred him to my 10 gallon and took down my 20. It has yet to be set up again and it was a couple years ago. Fortunately I got a 55 gal and have that up an running for a year.

 

[ArtesiaWells]

You are not alone here!!!

Thank you, Autumn....

 

[ArtesiaWells]

I had a 20 gallon tank that had been set up in my room since as long as I can remember. Then I ha it crash because I had a shy fish that I didn't see very often die in an ornament and I couldn't see it inside and didn't notice it missing because it rarely came out. The ammonia from the decomposing fish killed almost all my other fish. Only one survived. Transferred him to my 10 gallon and took down my 20. It has yet to be set up again and it was a couple years ago. Fortunately I got a 55 gal and have that up an running for a year.

Thanks for sharing, Redeemer; what do you have stocked in your 55 now?

 

[FallenRedeemer]

2 angel fish 2 bristle nose Plecos 1 bala shark 2 striped rafeal catfish

 

[ArtesiaWells]

Very nice!

Any pics?

 

[Sssea]

About 6 months ago, I lost my baby boy, Augustus. He was a huge, gorgeous orange and white oranda. To this day, we still have no idea what actually made him ill and his only tank mate, a brown oranda named Hans, won't accept any other fish for longer than a month or two. I think he misses Augustus as much as we do. I recently drew a cartoon of Augustus for a mural at my work and it's really helped me feel better

 

[ArtesiaWells]

About 6 months ago, I lost my baby boy, Augustus. He was a huge, gorgeous orange and white oranda. To this day, we still have no idea what actually made him ill and his only tank mate, a brown oranda named Hans, won't accept any other fish for longer than a month or two. I think he misses Augustus as much as we do. I recently drew a cartoon of Augustus for a mural at my work and it's really helped me feel better

Hey Sssea,

Thanks so much for sharing your (heartbreaking) experience in this thread -- I am so sorry for your loss; I know how that feels, believe me...your guy Augustus was adorable! Very much like our "Oscar" and "Sunshine," the Chocolate Fantail and Red Cap Oranda we lost in this bacterial infection outbreak; I know how you feel...

Can you give me some more details as far as what you mean by Hans "won't accept any other fish for longer than a month or two"? Does he fight with them? Do you have any pics of Hans? I'd love to see a brown Oranda!

 

[ArtesiaWells]

Someone poisoned my Koi pond before with soap.. I guess that is related to your story. After I scooped out some expensive dead Koi, I put feeder goldies in it. After 2 years, its infested with them now, I'm planning to clean it out, sell the goldies and put more Koi in it using the money from the goldies.

Hey 'dog,

That is terrible about the poisoning -- did you ever find out who did it? Was it a neighbor or someone else? That is just so vile and downright cruel -- I don't know why people poison pets like dogs and fish in a pond; I will never understand that...

What did you mean by "its infested with them now"...do you mean the feeder goldies all grew up?

 

[FallenRedeemer]

I'm working on redoing the landscaping in the tank.

 

[Sssea]

Hey Sssea,

Thanks so much for sharing your (heartbreaking) experience in this thread -- I am so sorry for your loss; I know how that feels, believe me...your guy Augustus was adorable! Very much like our "Oscar" and "Sunshine," the Chocolate Fantail and Red Cap Oranda we lost in this bacterial infection outbreak; I know how you feel...

Can you give me some more details as far as what you mean by Hans "won't accept any other fish for longer than a month or two"? Does he fight with them? Do you have any pics of Hans? I'd love to see a brown Oranda!

I've tried 4 fish as possible tank mates for Hans since we lost Augustus. The first was around the same size, maybe slightly smaller than Hans. They immediately began to fight, even before the new guy was done acclimating in the bag. It was terrifying. I had done everything right, even rearranged the decor. I gave it 3 days to settle down before I returned the new fish. It was a disaster. I had never seen such violence with my darling little creatures.

The second fish, Birdie, was much smaller, in hopes that Hans wouldn't feel intimidated and need to defend himself. It went very well for about a month, until I came home one day to find Birdie torn to shreds and barely holding on. He was still picking on her relentlessly, so I removed her immediately and rehomed her. It was heartbreaking, I was so attached to that little girl. (Keep in mind, all of these genders are just guesses, we have no idea what they actually were/are.)

It's been mostly the same story, now I have Gustavo in with him. It's been around 2 months and I sometimes notice Hans will give him a go, but nothing too bad. I'm always vigilant for the day he decides to snap though. I know he's kind of a terror, but I love him so much that I'm willing to put up with his bullying streak. This seems, from my research at least, to be pretty uncommon amongst normally peaceful goldies. We like to think that Augustus was his true love and no fish will ever live up to him

This is the two of them together, what seems like ages ago.

 

[smomus]

One day my son pointed out that there was something wrong with the fish in his 10g we had set up just a few weeks before. I thought it was ich. So, unable to raise the temp, I went out and bought some ich med and treated the tank. The snails that were in the tank I took out and put in a little 3g. The next day, what ever was going on had changed. No longer looked like ich, but instead the fish had what looked like peeling skin. I did immediate back to back water changes to get as much medication out that I could. At this point a few of the fish had already died. After a few days of doing water change after water change, we took the remaining 3 platies (down from a total of 7, one of them had been pregnant too) and put them along with the 4 snails into the 3g. The 3 fish seemed to heal up in the smaller tank and I scrubbed down the 10 and every thing in it, including the filter and media. Sadly another one died. I put the remaining 2 fish and the snails back in the 10. A few days later another fish died. One by one we've also lost most of the snails. We now are down to 1 platy and 1 snail.
Before I scrubbed the tank down, I realized what was going on. One night I got done doing a water change on my other tanks. it was late and I left my gravel vac sitting in my tub. The next morning I got up late for work and instead of properly taking care of the vac, I left it in there. A few hours later my son did a water change and didn't rinse the vac off first. Soap was introduced into the tank. The wc was done on Saturday. We noticed something wrong on Monday. Treated it for ich Tuesday. Didn't take the poor fish out until Thursday.
I wasn't necessarily attached to these fish yet as we'd only had them a few weeks. But it did highly discourage my son and he has lost interest, at least for now while there are other things to do during the summer. The poor 10g, a mouth or 6 weeks later, has one platy I've named "suds" and an ivory mystery snail i've named "slippery". I joke with my kids that I've named them that because they survived the "great soap attack of 2012"!
Through this I've decided a few things (and with your experience too Artesia)
1) the importance of not cutting corners! Any time I pick up that gravel vac to do water changes it gets rinsed off with HOT water, regardless. And make a set schedule for maintenance, and exactly what you are doing. This week I'll gravel vac the right side, next week I'll gravel vac the other or something like that.
2) if my fish get sick again, I will do a 100% wc and inspect the tank closer. Even of that means pulling out some of the deco and/or substrate

 

[ArtesiaWells]

I'm working on redoing the landscaping in the tank.

Very, very nice, Redeemer! This is what I want to shoot for in my recently-re-established 60 gallon! The natural colored gravel (I believe we have the same stuff you do) and the log formations with plants...it's just so hard to design and visualize! You have given me some good ideas and inspiration; did you not wish to "build up" your plants toward the back of the tank at all?

And are you running a fluorescent light above it? If so, do you find that gives a "natural" enough glow to the water as opposed to an incandescent light?

 

[ArtesiaWells]

Wow, Sssea...that brown Oranda sure does look like a terror -- although very cute as well! You can see it in his eyes that he's on the hunt for goldie blood....very much like our "Rubio," the "killer" Red Cap Oranda...

I've tried 4 fish as possible tank mates for Hans since we lost Augustus. The first was around the same size, maybe slightly smaller than Hans. They immediately began to fight, even before the new guy was done acclimating in the bag. It was terrifying. I had done everything right, even rearranged the decor. I gave it 3 days to settle down before I returned the new fish. It was a disaster. I had never seen such violence with my darling little creatures.

Wow...and this was all Hans' aggression starting it? It really does sound like our Rubio...

The second fish, Birdie, was much smaller, in hopes that Hans wouldn't feel intimidated and need to defend himself. It went very well for about a month, until I came home one day to find Birdie torn to shreds and barely holding on. He was still picking on her relentlessly, so I removed her immediately and rehomed her. It was heartbreaking, I was so attached to that little girl. (Keep in mind, all of these genders are just guesses, we have no idea what they actually were/are.)

My G-d....what happened to Birdie? Is she still with you? I know what you mean about "sexing" these fish; sometimes, my wife and I just like to believe they are a certain sex and go with it, based on the flow of their fins, their eyes, etc...

But this behavior you are describing sounds so much like what we went through with Rubio and the two fantails he picked to death -- although not as violent or aggressive as what you're describing, Rubio would circle Sunshine and Oscar constantly all over the tank and nip at their rear fantails any chance het got, sometimes really getting in there and biting, causing them to swim away quickly and twitch. Of course, it was too late once we knew he was opening massive sores on their bodies, letting bacteria consume them...the odd thing about all of this is that we're talking about goldfish here that are not supposed to be aggressive in the least bit...

It's been mostly the same story, now I have Gustavo in with him. It's been around 2 months and I sometimes notice Hans will give him a go, but nothing too bad. I'm always vigilant for the day he decides to snap though. I know he's kind of a terror, but I love him so much that I'm willing to put up with his bullying streak.

I know how you feel, because we feel the same way about Rubio -- he's growing and doing fine in the 10 gallon for now, and even though he bullied and injured the other fish I raised to death, we can't let go of him or ignore the fact that we love him as well. Weird, isn't it?

What's even stranger is that like with Hans and Gustavo, our Rubio isn't going after the two small goldies we introduced to his tank a couple of weeks back -- yet in the 60 gallon, he went after and killed two fantails larger than him.

This seems, from my research at least, to be pretty uncommon amongst normally peaceful goldies. We like to think that Augustus was his true love and no fish will ever live up to him

Solid theory and one that I would have gone with personally as well; a theory that was introduced to me in my particular situation was that when Rubio was introduced to the 60 gallon, our water conditions in that tank were already getting worse and becoming stressful for the inhabitants, so when Rubio came in, the stress made him a bit aggressive and nuts, thus leading to his attacks of the other two. Makes sense when you think about it in terms of humans -- many people will get cuckoo during times of stress, so...

This is the two of them together, what seems like ages ago.

Awwww....very cute! He does look like a devil though.....

 

[ArtesiaWells]

One day my son pointed out that there was something wrong with the fish in his 10g we had set up just a few weeks before. I thought it was ich. So, unable to raise the temp, I went out and bought some ich med and treated the tank. The snails that were in the tank I took out and put in a little 3g. The next day, what ever was going on had changed. No longer looked like ich, but instead the fish had what looked like peeling skin. I did immediate back to back water changes to get as much medication out that I could. At this point a few of the fish had already died. After a few days of doing water change after water change, we took the remaining 3 platies (down from a total of 7, one of them had been pregnant too) and put them along with the 4 snails into the 3g. The 3 fish seemed to heal up in the smaller tank and I scrubbed down the 10 and every thing in it, including the filter and media. Sadly another one died. I put the remaining 2 fish and the snails back in the 10. A few days later another fish died. One by one we've also lost most of the snails. We now are down to 1 platy and 1 snail.
Before I scrubbed the tank down, I realized what was going on. One night I got done doing a water change on my other tanks. it was late and I left my gravel vac sitting in my tub. The next morning I got up late for work and instead of properly taking care of the vac, I left it in there. A few hours later my son did a water change and didn't rinse the vac off first. Soap was introduced into the tank. The wc was done on Saturday. We noticed something wrong on Monday. Treated it for ich Tuesday. Didn't take the poor fish out until Thursday.
I wasn't necessarily attached to these fish yet as we'd only had them a few weeks. But it did highly discourage my son and he has lost interest, at least for now while there are other things to do during the summer. The poor 10g, a mouth or 6 weeks later, has one platy I've named "suds" and an ivory mystery snail i've named "slippery". I joke with my kids that I've named them that because they survived the "great soap attack of 2012"!
Through this I've decided a few things (and with your experience too Artesia)
1) the importance of not cutting corners! Any time I pick up that gravel vac to do water changes it gets rinsed off with HOT water, regardless. And make a set schedule for maintenance, and exactly what you are doing. This week I'll gravel vac the right side, next week I'll gravel vac the other or something like that.
2) if my fish get sick again, I will do a 100% wc and inspect the tank closer. Even of that means pulling out some of the deco and/or substrate

I'm right there with ya, smomus! And I am so sorry about the "great soap attack" although that was REALLY funny naming...

 

[FallenRedeemer]

I'm workin on replacing that piece of fake driftwood in the center with a piece of real driftwood. Also working on getting more plants. Will also get some moss to attach to the driftwood once I get it. I have fluorescents above my tank two bulbs. I'm not sure what the specs are on them. They came with the tank when I bought it last year off Craigslist. I think the fluorescent bulbs do look better than incandescent.

 

[ArtesiaWells]

I see; what do you like better about the fluorescent lighting over the incandescent?

 

[FallenRedeemer]

To me it looks to illuminate the tank better shows off the colors of the fish more. Also better variety can get ones that are better for growing plants and different things. I also haven't see any incandescent lighting for 55 gal tanks

 

[FallenRedeemer]

I've also heard that led lights do well. I have one on my 10 gallon. It does well. I really light how they have the switch between white light and blue ones for at night.