What a way to wake up in the morning.

[Tetra1990]

on Sunday, I did my normal larger PWC, about 50 percent. I do this 2-3times a month. My normal. Weekly pwc is 20%. I also changed my filter media. It hasn't been changed since the tank was started back in late January of this year. When I woke up and turned on my tank light, everyone was belly up did the tank go into a mini cycle? I added prime to the new water and matched my temp. No, I didn't test the water last night. I was planning on doing is this morning. Please help me!! What did I do wrong?

 

[BlaseMrNiceguy]

Changing the filter media could have caused a mini-cycle, especially if it hasn't changed it in a while. What are your water params now?

 

[Ponch]

on Sunday, I did my normal larger PWC, about 50 percent. I do this 2-3times a month. My normal. Weekly pwc is 20%. I also changed my filter media. It hasn't been changed since the tank was started back in late January of this year. When I woke up and turned on my tank light, everyone was belly up did the tank go into a mini cycle? I added prime to the new water and matched my temp. No, I didn't test the water last night. I was planning on doing is this morning. Please help me!! What did I do wrong?

Sorry to hear that. Did you you change ALL of you filter media? If so you most likely threw the beneficial bacteria You had grown into the trash, Thereby starting a new cycle...since most of your tanks BB lie in the filter.

 

[herp_mommy]

Sorry to hear that. Did you you change ALL of you filter media? If so you most likely threw the beneficial bacteria You had grown into the trash, Thereby starting a new cycle...since most of your tanks BB lie in the filter.

This probably happened. You removed the beneficial bacteria. Instead, take the filter media out, squeeze it out in a bucket of dechlorinated water (or siphoned out tank water form your PWC) and put it back into the filter. If the filter pad is too deteriorated, just add a new pad and keep the old one in there with it until the bacteria has a chance to move to the new pad.

 

[Mommaof4boys]

on Sunday, I did my normal larger PWC, about 50 percent. I do this 2-3times a month. My normal. Weekly pwc is 20%. I also changed my filter media. It hasn't been changed since the tank was started back in late January of this year. When I woke up and turned on my tank light, everyone was belly up did the tank go into a mini cycle? I added prime to the new water and matched my temp. No, I didn't test the water last night. I was planning on doing is this morning. Please help me!! What did I do wrong?

Oh No!! That would totally ruin someones whole day!! I am sorry that happened to you!!!!

 

[Regz8000]

this is a little lesson for you,Never change all your filter media at once,change in months apart
Still a shame this happened.

 

[librarygirl]

As the others have said, changing filter media isn't required (regardless of what the manufacturers say) unless it's falling apart. And then you'd only replace small portions at a time.

BUT, if you changed all the media and then the next day all the fish were dead (unless I'm misreading) I doubt that alone would have killed the fish overnight.

You said you added Prime to the water before replacing, so that's not the cause (unless maybe you didn't add enough). Could anything have gotten into the tank as you were cleaning? Cleaning agents or anything like that?

This happened to me once when I first started. I was fish-in cycling with some Glofish and after a very large water change they were all dead the next morning. I still have no idea what happened.

Sorry about your fish.

 

[BBradbury]

on Sunday, I did my normal larger PWC, about 50 percent. I do this 2-3times a month. My normal. Weekly pwc is 20%. I also changed my filter media. It hasn't been changed since the tank was started back in late January of this year. When I woke up and turned on my tank light, everyone was belly up did the tank go into a mini cycle? I added prime to the new water and matched my temp. No, I didn't test the water last night. I was planning on doing is this morning. Please help me!! What did I do wrong?

Hello Tet...

Your water change routine seems a little complex. A weekly 50 percent change is all that's needed to gurantee stable water properties. When you service the media, simply squeeze it in a bucket of the old water and replace only the medium that's extremely used to the point it's not holding together and just replace that piece or pieces. If you replaced all the media, it's possible you removed most of the bacteria needed to process the fish waste. Hard to believe this problem happened overnight, you must have a small tank. A larger tank would have enough water to dilute the waste.

B

 

[Tetra1990]

As the others have said, changing filter media isn't required (regardless of what the manufacturers say) unless it's falling apart. And then you'd only replace small portions at a time.

BUT, if you changed all the media and then the next day all the fish were dead (unless I'm misreading) I doubt that alone would have killed the fish overnight.

You said you added Prime to the water before replacing, so that's not the cause (unless maybe you didn't add enough). Could anything have gotten into the tank as you were cleaning? Cleaning agents or anything like that?

This happened to me once when I first started. I was fish-in cycling with some Glofish and after a very large water change they were all dead the next morning. I still have no idea what happened.

Sorry about your fish.

I never use any type of cleaning agents with my tank. The only silver lining I can see in this is now I can go ahead and finally change out my gravel for sand. Starting from square one kinda sucks.