Fish dying rapidly

[Kham1984]

I live in a house where the owner suddenly passed away leaving a 180 gallon freshwater aquarium. Over the past few days multiple fish have died each day. I tried changing some of the water, have added stress coat & aquarium salt. They all seem to be ok, then suddenly belly up. No visible signs of parasites or disease. I thought maybe ammonia but the partial water change should have helped that. I don't know if he had water testing strips or anything so I need to get some before I can test water. Does this sound like ammonia or something else? I also need to figure out how to replace filter media in the external filters. They are a little intimidating. Thanks for any advice.

 

[TMaier]

So many things to check.

Temperature 78?
Did you treat the water/dechlorinate?
Are the filters running? Surface agitation is what oxygenates the water. Or is there a bubbler?

 

[agrasyuk]

Partial water change (PWC), I'd say 50% but on a 180 that will be a lot of buckets... did you treat the water when you changed some of it?
Don't change anything in the filters(make/model?). With established tank filter media being the problem is highly improbable. Make sure you not overfeeding the fish (the only way I can see ammonia being a problem), to be on safe side feed every other day or even less for now. Fish will survive (in nature they get to eat once a week during some seasons), water quality will be more stable due to less poop and rotting leftovers.
If you need to test water testing strips will not be of much use, look into API freshwater test kit.

Good luck!

 

[King Fisher]

Partial water change (PWC), I'd say 50% but on a 180 that will be a lot of buckets... did you treat the water when you changed some of it?
Don't change anything in the filters(make/model?). With established tank filter media being the problem is highly improbable. Make sure you not overfeeding the fish (the only way I can see ammonia being a problem), to be on safe side feed every other day or even less for now. Fish will survive (in nature they get to eat once a week during some seasons), water quality will be more stable due to less poop and rotting leftovers.
If you need to test water testing strips will not be of much use, look into API freshwater test kit.

Good luck!

He's running a FX4 and FX6. Bandit asked him for pics of everything in an earlier post.

 

[Kham1984]

Temp is good. Filters running. Tested water and it's PH is on the high side but not off the charts. Put some stabilizer in so hopefully when I get home there won't be any more dead ones.

 

[King Fisher]

Leave the pH alone. Fluctuations in pH will kill them. Fish will adapt to pH.

 

[Matt68005]

They probably would benfit from an antibiotic at this point.
Are there symptoms? Tail rot, body sores, fungus?

Oxytetracycline works good in flake food
So does Doxycycline.
Both are effective broad spectrum antibiotics
Feed it to them dont kill your good bacteria in the tank.