Tank in Crisis

[sixthgradefish]

Hello!

Long story short, I work at a special education school that serves grades k-12. Out 10th grade class had a fish tank during the 2010-2011 school year. The tank was the best. It was a simple 10 gallon tank. We tested the water daily as a math project to see the water cycle. Summer school ended on August 25 and in the fall the tank was to be moved to a 6th grade class. Unfortunately someone dumped a huge amount of food into the tank to the point where you could not see the fish over our week vacation.

I cleaned an moved the fish tank to its new home but now the fish are dying. I only did a 50% water change despite the conditions for fear of stressing the fish.

What should my next move be?

Thanks, Wendy

 

[sixthgradefish]

ended poorly

Sadly, most of the fish died. I moved the rest into a well established tank but have yet to see them this morning. My sixth graders are going to start fresh. I scrubbed the tank and decorations last night and tossed the gravel due to snails. Let's hope our next attempt is successful.

 

[EducationalTank]

Sadly, most of the fish died. I moved the rest into a well established tank but have yet to see them this morning. My sixth graders are going to start fresh. I scrubbed the tank and decorations last night and tossed the gravel due to snails. Let's hope our next attempt is successful.

I have a 10 gallon tank with a bi color angel and a flame angel. The tank was fully cycled with live sand, 3 plastic plants, and a plastic castle. I ran tests every other day to make adjustments when all my tests finally proved ready for new fish I went to the LVS with a sample of my water to make sure they said it was all fine and I went ahead and purchased these two fish (this was last Wednesday). Everything seemed to be going well they were eating and happily swimming. Monday morning (yesterday) I looked in the tank and the bi color was dead. I went to the store when they opened at 10am with the fish and they would not give me any sort of refund but said it died because I had no live rock so I said if I buy 10 lbs will you give me a discount? And they said yes even though I still payed $6.50 a lb. I still got the rock for the sake of the flame angel. I asked is the rock cured they said yes. They said just to put it in the tank and let the filter clean up the water and that the flame angel could stay in the tank. I went back home and put the rock in the tank around 11:00AM. The flame angel was doing fine. I checked several times throughout the evening I fed him around 4 and at 10pm before going to bed he was dead. I'm waiting for the store to open in 30 min and I'm taking the dead fish and a sample of the water.

 

[KGotschall]

That's a shame. Unfortunately, it can be extremely stressful for fish to move from a high nitrate(even nitrite) environment they have been in for a while to a healthier environment, and THIS can cause disease and loss. Kind of ironic. For next time, stick to smaller water changes over time, and this will better acclimate them to healthier conditions. Also, clean the filter media in siphoned tank water, and only a bit at a time. A mistake people make is cleaning the media in tap water, and too much media at one time. The chlorine in the tap will damage bacteria that create a stable environment for your fish.