Help! All of our fish died!

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butlers

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My husband and I have had our tank for close to one year. Everything was going great. We had some trial and error at the beginning but had worked everything out. We had added a UV sterilizer and not seen any signs of ich or any other diseases. The only fish trouble lately was the occasional fin biters.
My husband added stress coat to the tank Friday night at about 10. Just did this as we had been instructed for routine maintenance. No big deal! ?
At 4 a.m. he came downstairs with our baby who sometimes will only stop crying when she sits and watches the fish :) only to find that they had ALL died :!: :cry:

We had watched all of them grow for the last year. We had 6 angels that ranged from4 to6 inches. 3 bala sharks that were 8 inches long. A my husbands pride was his Ghost Knife that had grown to 10 inches long.
We were just sick :cry:

He checked the water. The ph, nitrites, amonia levels everything was just as it always has been. The temperature was the same. The only thing we
could think was maybe it was the stress coat??? I have heard a few people say this has happened when they used it as well but mostly everyone has talked about how much they loved the stuff. I'm not sure what it was?
Is there anything that anyone can think of that maybe we overlooked?
We are afraid to start over and have the same thing happen next year. It has been a sad weekend for our family :cry:

We are thinking that if we try again we would like to put a variety of chichlids so we need to know also what the best ph level, temperature etc. for them would be and also what they are compatiable with?
 
Welcome to Aquariumadvice Butlers:

Oh thats awful; I'm sorry! I am at a loss as to why they ALL would keel over in one night, especially if your water parameters are fine (0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, >40 nitrates, no change in Ph levels), so I'm going to ask some questions which may help us figure this out.

You don't mention nitrates; what are those levels. And just to be clear, when you say the other levels are just as they've been, what are the numbers?

I sorta doubt it was the StressCoat, unless it was a new bottle or some contaminant got into it. I personally do not use StressCoat; I don't use anything which claims to "enhance slime coat". Most of those add salt or some chemical to mildy irritate the fish so they produce more slime as a defense; aloe vera has no proven benefit for fish. Was it new?

Is it a well planted tank? Does it have an aerator? Sometimes in well planted tanks, there is an oxygen issue overnight, as plants use O2 at night when they stop photosynthesizing. Its a VERY off chance is it is very well planted, the fish suffocated. I find it hard to believe they all would have died tho; I imagine some would have survived at least till the morning.

My other thought is disease. There are some virulent diseases out there. The acute form of columnaris can kill in hours. Again all the fish succumbing overnite is unusual. Were there any changes in behavior the night before?

Did you water change right before the deaths?

There are other, even less possible, causes. Can you think of ANY changes (environmental, behavioral, chemical) in the days leading up to your disaster?
 
I'll try to answer your questions. I hope we can find an answer so we don't have to go through this again. Our Ph is in the low 6's due to some Discus that we tried to baby along with no success (they fought each other and both died about a month earlier). All the other fish were thriving, growing and seamed happy so I didn't mess with the Ph. Our ammonia was almost down to 0% and the nitrites were below 5%. We didn't have any plants yet, we were planning that as a later addition after we mastered the fish, we thought we were doing a great job, until our disastrous night. I did a 15% water change about two weeks and the 75 gallon tank has 2 Emporer-400's on it. We also have bubbles throughout the tank, I don't think that it was an oxygen problem. When I saw the tank that morning I noticed one large angel and our 10" goastknife still moving, but within an hour they were gone too. We do still have our two plecos. We are now in the process of slowly (over the next week) raising the Ph and the salt to convert our tank into a Cichlid tank.

Thank you for your concern and your advise.
 
i've heard that TB can infect a fishtank, and kill your fish within hours....but I'm not sure this could be the case, if the plecos are still alive.

I would be tempted to do a tear down on your tank, and disinfect the whole thing (find another home for the plecos)...you wouldn't want whatever killed your fish to get at the new cichlids!
 
Ok...more thoughts:

Have you used ANY chemicals in that room? Spray cleaners, new rug, paint, someone doing their nails in the room..anything which could be in the air? Any visitors which may have dumped something in the tank (I've read of folks who have had parties..and someone dumped beer in the tank *sigh*)?

You don't mention nitrates; have you measured them as well? The other thing I'm noting is the other nitrogen components are not at 0 "Our ammonia was almost down to 0% and the nitrites were below 5%." Definitely don't want any in the tank. When you say nitrites were near 5%, do you mean 5ppm? If so, thats pretty high and could be a factor. Anything above 1ppm can be deadly; nitrites compete with O2 at the gills and the fish can suffocate. Also, when was the last time you tested? If it was when you last water changed, and that was 2 weeks ago, the levels could have risen enough to be really dangerous.

I tend to think it was a chemical. mostly because of the rapidity of the deaths, but there is a chance it was a nitrogenous waste issue. If you think of anything else, let us know!

Btw, the 2 plecs were in the tank and survived?

*edit*
Just a FYI, but plecs actually are ok with salt for periods of time. I had also heard the no salt for plecs thing and did some research. Turns out its not the issue its made out to be. In fact, salt is the number one treatment for nitrite poisoning in catfish.
 
on the nitrites level yes, we meant ppm. my husband checked the chem levels when we found the fish. and again later that evening.
:?
 
The nitrites at 5ppm are totally deadly, in case you meant 0.5ppm, which is not ideal but more likely. You should have zero ammonia and zero nitrites (Allivymar has probably already gone over this). If they were 5ppm that would take a little time and you would have been having fish loss gradually up to then. I had a tank die off almost instantly (luckily it was only a 10 gal so not too many fish) and I never did find out, since in my case the water parameters were perfect, with no ammonia and no nitrites, and trace nitrates. There could have been an airborne chemical, or perhaps do you have small children that could have put something in the tank, perhaps, without you knowing and without them knowing what they were doing?
 
Did you add any display item into tank? but at this rate i think it is most probably due to chemical poisoning that cause the dead.
 
That is just a complete bummer. :(

Just curious... you had the tank for "over a year now". If that is the case, why would you have been getting any ammonia readings? More importantly, how could your nitrites have gotten so high in a cycled tank? :?

Sounds like something killed your bacterial filter and whatever that was probably contributed to the demise of your fish. The bacteria that convert Nitrite to Nitrate are particularly sensitive to chemicals. Nitrite at 5 ppm is definately a killer. :(
 
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