What went wrong?

[Sdimatties]

Hi,everyone. Sorry I've been gone for a while. The sight, smell and thought of fish made me violently ill my entire pregnancy. Baby Alec is growing and is now 7 months old! My fabulous so took "care" of the tank the entire time. We only lost one Molly and one barb so I was happy. Yesterday I finally had a chance to deep scrub algae off the glass that he left for months. He then did a water change and rinsed the filter pads. Two hours later, all but our papa loach were dead. I moved papa to our 5 gallon and gave him his castle. I checked this morning and he moved into his castle, but I haven't seen him since. I don't know what happened. I think we did too much at once.

Anyway, how to I prep the tank (20 high) for fish? I'm fine with having it run and to put fish in there in a few weeks. I won't get a platy and we all loved our yoyo loach.


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[NigelK8485]

Congratulations on the baby! Did he rinse the filter media in untreated water? Maybe destroying the bacteria colony?

I'd start by testing your water parameters and seeing if you have a cycled tank still or not.


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[Mebbid]

I would say that some neglect most likely happened to the tank. Missed water changes maybe?

Over time the water will lost the buffering agents if the water isn't changed out enough. This will cause the pH to decrease. When a large portion of water is suddenly changed out after a period of no water changes it can cause a pH spike which puts a ton of stress on fish and if it's bad enough can kill them.

I can't think of any other explanation that would cause a tank full of fish to die suddenly over a 2 hour time period.

The tank is already prepared assuming the filter pad wasn't cleaned in tap water or left to dry out. There shouldn't be anything special that needs to be done.

 

[Sdimatties]

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to test the water a little later. I know he wasn't as consistent as I am with water changes. I feel bad I'll have to break the news to my son when he gets back from his father's.


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