Hi all.
I have never posted before but have always read and taken the excellent advice on this forum. I am now desperate!
I had a well established (4 years) 160 litre (35 gallon) freshwater aquarium, with a variety of fish; clown loaches, tetras, mollys and so on, and an external cannister filter (fluval, sorry not sure of the number) Everything was great, 0 readings for nitrite, ammonia and nitrates, PH around 7, regular water changes, everybody happy.
Last week my husband built me a beautiful "in the wall" aquarium, using the correct aquarium silicone with no mould or mildew repellant etc. When completed he cleaned it out with rubbing alcohol, then we thoroughly rinsed it out.
We set up the new tank, 330 litres, (72 gallons) with the existing fluval cannister filter, all existing media, and a new Eheim 2213 to run alongside it. After much research we did not transfer the existing substrate or water, believing that there would be sufficient bacteria in the existing filter to cope with the bio-load of the new tank, as we were not adding any new fish.
I let the filter run for a day, the temperature came up to the normal temp and all parameters looked good. I then transferred the fish across.
Within an hour I knew they weren't happy, and within 12 hours every single fish was laid at the bottom dead.
We thought we had done everything correctly. I tested the water immediately and there was no ammonia or nitrates/nitrites. The LFS confirmed this.
The only thing I can think of that I did was clean the outside of the glass with a window cleaner, and not be as careful as I should have been. It is possible that the vapour got into the tank.
The water is now cloudy (like a smoke) and I don't know what to do next.
I suppose my questions are:
Is it likely the window cleaner killed my fish?
I have carried out large water changes and added activated carbon to the filter, but will it dissipate or will I have to take everything out (gravel, plants etc) and start again? If so, what can i clean it with?
Will my cycled filter be ruined and will I effectively be starting from scratch?
Sorry for the long post, any advice greatly appreciated.
Helen
I have never posted before but have always read and taken the excellent advice on this forum. I am now desperate!
I had a well established (4 years) 160 litre (35 gallon) freshwater aquarium, with a variety of fish; clown loaches, tetras, mollys and so on, and an external cannister filter (fluval, sorry not sure of the number) Everything was great, 0 readings for nitrite, ammonia and nitrates, PH around 7, regular water changes, everybody happy.
Last week my husband built me a beautiful "in the wall" aquarium, using the correct aquarium silicone with no mould or mildew repellant etc. When completed he cleaned it out with rubbing alcohol, then we thoroughly rinsed it out.
We set up the new tank, 330 litres, (72 gallons) with the existing fluval cannister filter, all existing media, and a new Eheim 2213 to run alongside it. After much research we did not transfer the existing substrate or water, believing that there would be sufficient bacteria in the existing filter to cope with the bio-load of the new tank, as we were not adding any new fish.
I let the filter run for a day, the temperature came up to the normal temp and all parameters looked good. I then transferred the fish across.
Within an hour I knew they weren't happy, and within 12 hours every single fish was laid at the bottom dead.
We thought we had done everything correctly. I tested the water immediately and there was no ammonia or nitrates/nitrites. The LFS confirmed this.
The only thing I can think of that I did was clean the outside of the glass with a window cleaner, and not be as careful as I should have been. It is possible that the vapour got into the tank.
The water is now cloudy (like a smoke) and I don't know what to do next.
I suppose my questions are:
Is it likely the window cleaner killed my fish?
I have carried out large water changes and added activated carbon to the filter, but will it dissipate or will I have to take everything out (gravel, plants etc) and start again? If so, what can i clean it with?
Will my cycled filter be ruined and will I effectively be starting from scratch?
Sorry for the long post, any advice greatly appreciated.
Helen
