Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => The Emergency Room => Topic started by: Rich_D on September 22, 2014, 11:54:48 PM
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So bad news first, all of my fish have died whilst I have been away for a few days, I haven't left a holiday feeder or anything in the tank.
The tank its self is over 2 months old and was started using media from a friends tank which is fine and has been running for around 2 years, my tank is very cloudy, a white cloudy colour that rolls around the tank like fog? It also smells quite bad, with a smell I can't quite put my finger on? The heater is working fine as all my thermometers read a similar amount of around 26.5 degrees.
When I got back and tested the water my ph was the same as it always has been at 7.8, ammonia was at 0, nitrite was also 0 and nitrate was 20 which again is what it pretty much always is. I use api liquid testers, although a fish place near work has said they don't rate them and that JBL test kit is better?
I checked all the fish for any signs I could but they had no marks and the gills had no colour to them.
As far as I know nothing has gotten in the water as its in my room next to a window that is always on the latch for fresh airflow, some sunlight does hit the tank but not too much.
The smell, is hard to describe and the only thing I can liken it to is when I changed my old tank from gravel to sand, when I was taking the gravel out it had a very similar smell almost like a rotting smell maybe?
I did a water change the day before I left and a vacuum at the same time.
I'm going to clear and clean the tank in the next few days and throw the filter media away and use Sues fishless cycle, but just need to see if it's anything I have done? If anybody has any ideas?
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I suppose a bacteria bloom might have been caused by the dead fish. Hopefully one of the experienced people will offer advice, I just wanted to sympathise.
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hello rich sorry to hear about your fish loss
was someone alse taking care of the fish while you was away
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No as i was only away for 4 days it was easier to just say dont do anything with it, my lights and bubbles run off timers so it didnt need anyone to do anything. As fish are ok for up to a week or so without food. All the equipment is working fine as are the timers?
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could the smell be from the dead fish rotting away and bloating , if they died on day 1 of your hoilday that is still plenty of time to decay and smell.
what fish was in the tank and was there any recent additions to the tank.
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Does sound like a bacterial bloom and whilst they aren't directly dangerous for the fish (i.e. the bacterial don't harm the fish) they can severely deplete the oxygen. I suspect this is what could have happened. It normally happens during cycling though so not sure what started it.
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Sorry to hear about that, Rich. I've left a tank of fish for 2 weeks with no ill effects so it wasn't a direct result of that.
The smell... was it a sort of compost heap smell?
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That was not a nice welcome home :(
It is difficult to say what happened. Everything I would say has already been mentioned.
Your ammonia and nitrite are perfect; you didn't have a pH crash; your nitrate is low enough even for very picky fishkeepers. Bacterial blooms aren't toxic to fish, just the oxygen problem dbaggie commented on.
Was there anyone in the house while you were away, either living there or going in to check things? Could they have sprayed something in the same room as the fish - air freshener, fly spray, furniture polish, perfume etc?
If you are worried about contamination of the filter media, by all means dispose of it and do a fishless cycle. But if you think it could be OK with just a wash, use dechlorinated water to wash it very thoroughly and use some ammonia to check if you have enough bacteria - that is, add 3ppm and see if there is any ammonia or nitrite present after 24 hours.
Re the API test kit, I don't think any make is better than any other with the liquid kits. Probably the shop only sells JBL and didn't want you going elsewhere for a different one. Salifert do make better quality testers, I think they are powders. They cost about the same to buy but do fewer tests per pack so they do work out more expensive.
Nitrate tests in all makes can be inaccurate if the one bottle that contains the insoluble ingredient isn't shaken properly. Salifert is reckoned to be the most accurate nitrate tester.
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Thanks guys, and thanks for the sympathy. To answer your questions-
I thought it could be a bacteria bloom but as the tank has been running for some time didn't think it would be?
The smell is very hard to explain. It almost smells like when drains are blocked? Or when stagnant water is disturbed? That's the closest thing I can think of. Which is weird as I have a spray bar and bubbles so it definitely isn't stagnant.
With regards to filter media I'd rather start again especially with the smell, I have plent of filter stuff as it was cheaper to buy my media in bulk than separate. So have more than enough to start several tanks.
There were people in the house but they never go in my room when I'm not in and don't spray anything in the room.
I'll stick to the API tests then, as I've always found them ok. Just wondered with the extent they were going to discredit API and how JBL was better.
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The smell suggests something going off. It could be the fish after they died. Do you have any live plants, and how are they? Something happened (obviously); the problem is finding out exactly what :-\
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That's what I thought, It could have been the fish but all the fish were removed when I got home Sunday evening. I know I got them all as i was counting what fish were to see if I had any alive. I do have live plants probably around 150ish most of them seemed ok, only a couple looked to be slightly dying but these were the newer of the bunch and have been in for around 2 weeks where they usually die off slightly then come back in my experience. The smell though has gotten worse as I left the tank running without the lights on to see what would happen to the cloudiness but it hasn't moved and the smell has just gotten worse. So I'm currently removing all the water and plants now as the plants ( most of them) have a white film or slight coating to them??
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Does it smell of rotten eggs?
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According to my other half rotten eggs was the closest smell she could think of, I've lead a sheltered life and have never smelt rotten eggs lol
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What has happened is this... (my theory anyway). In certain deep and dark depths below the surface of your sand, in an area or areas with poor surface circulation a deadly menace has appeared! An anaerobic bacterium has found a nice cuddly space in which to raise it's family of blood-curdling killers. Slowly over the months, the family has become a horde, releasing their deadly toxins, consisting mainly of hydrogen sulphide (the rotten eggs smell), into the deep sand beds in your tank. Then... suddenly... something breaks though this large toxin laden area. It may be a root or a fish or you may disturb the killers yourself. The results are the same; The Hydrogen sulphide gas is released into your tank as a deadly poison! Duh-duh-duuuuh! :yikes:
You need to keep the depth of your sand layers below about 2" You need to to aerate the sand beds regularly by pushing something though them, or get yourself some MTS. (Malaysian Trumpet Snails) (Thscweam... Thcweam... thcweam... thcw.....) :sick:
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Well that was something I considered Steve, but wasn't sure as my tank was only running for around 10/11 weeks that it was long enough for that to happen??
Anyway I've emptied the tank to start cleaning it and the rocks and filter and heater tomorrow to start the fish less cycle over the weekend.
On a side note I've found an online place to get some mor plants and for the amount its very cheap! 200 plants for just under £29 which is an awful lot cheaper than it was for me to buy them in shops. Anyone had any experience buying plants online???
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Hi Rich D :wave:
So many people having problems with their tanks, it seems at the moment. I'm sorry to see that you are having troubles too.
I had wondered if a little toxic pocket under your sand had occurred and then been disturbed, but not being much of an expert, I didn't suggest it. Still, if Steve thinks that, then I would definitely consider it as a strong possibility....he's quite clever, you know :isay: but don't tell him I said that ;)
Anyway, good luck with all your tank spring cleaning.
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yes rich i bought all my plants from ebay, was much cheeper than buying from my local shops , i was very pleased with them and they seemed to arrive to me in very good condition , they was in re usable bags and was nice and moist , i would certainly buy again.
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Rich, how horrid for you, and the fish, sorry this has happened.
Steve, I have sand under 2" deep, and MTS, and do the stirring thing... occasionally. Will do so again once the fish are 'up' but every time I do this, there are gas bubbles produced. So I know that H2S is being produced, should I do anything more?
Actually I've just looked at the tape measure and two inches is not very much at all, maybe I need to take out some sand. Also I have undisturbed areas under rocks.
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You seem to have it mostly covered Puffin. I could add that you try and squidge your rocks own so the gap is less than 2" and to improve the circulation in your tank. Any Hydrogen Sulphide can then get whisked away and degassed to atmosphere before doing any damage.
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Thanks Steve, I've given the sand a good squidge, I have to be a lot more careful with this now i have pygmy cory in there! As it turns out, the sand doesn't get any deeper than 2". But lots of gas was released.
How does it cause problems? When the gas is released slowly and dissolves into the water?
(Apparently squidge isn't a word, lol)
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Did you know that hydrogen sulphide is actually more toxic than hydrogen cyanide? But it is so smelly that a tiny bit smells like a huge amount so you can never get a lethal dose as you couldn't stand the smell long enough. (OK, some people would ;) ) I used H2S gas straight from a cylinder many many years ago as a chemistry research student and believe me, a tiny whiff stinks out the whole room.
A lot of people reckon the danger from hydrogen sulphide in an aquarium is over rated as very little dissolves in the water from the surface of the bubble in the same way that very little oxygen dissolves from the bubbles from an air stone. But continual seepage of the gas from the substrate would dissolve more. And it would just take one fish to be overcome then that one decomposing could do the rest of the damage.
I'm not trying to scare everyone. If this was a common occurrence, no-one would use sand. If you can tolerate them, MTS do a very good job of aerating sand and are also useful as an early warning system - if they ever crawl up the glass during the daytime, something is very wrong with the tank. Stirring the sand gently at every water change also stops gases building up.
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On a side note I've found an online place to get some mor plants and for the amount its very cheap! 200 plants for just under £29 which is an awful lot cheaper than it was for me to buy them in shops. Anyone had any experience buying plants online???
Since discovering how cheap you can get stem plants of eBay I've never bought a plant from a shop again!
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Some people selling plants, be it on Ebay, an on-line shop or a real shop, sell non-aquatic plants for aquariums. Check what the plants are before using them. Favourites are dracenas and spider plants.
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Really sorry to read this.. hope you get things back to normal soon
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Did you know that hydrogen sulphide is actually more toxic than hydrogen cyanide? But it is so smelly that a tiny bit smells like a huge amount so you can never get a lethal dose as you couldn't stand the smell long enough. (OK, some people would ;) ) I used H2S gas straight from a cylinder many many years ago as a chemistry research student and believe me, a tiny whiff stinks out the whole room.
It's when you stop smelling it that's you know it's reaching dangerous levels. One sniff and you're dead before you hit the ground. I used to work on the rigs in the North Sea, and one of my jobs was to don a gas mask and go and stand by the drill cuttings return with H2S sniffer in hand.
One of the safety lectures we had told of an H2S leak in a work pit below ground level. (H2S is denser than air.) There was someone lying at the bottom of the pit - so they sent someone in to find out what was wrong. He collapsed..... so they sent someone else in.... When the fourth person had collapsed they twigged that something was seriously wrong - and they had 4 dead workers!
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Should have mentioned that. The first symptom of H2S poisoning is that it numbs the nerves so you can't smell anything.
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Test your source water, out of your tap.
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Sorry, but i didnt see where you had tested your source water (tap) ??
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Ok, my MTS are regularly climbing the walls.
Do you mean en masse Sue, or five or six? Cos I have a lot of MTS and at any one time several are climbing.
Shadow Bass... What test are you suggesting to do on the tap water?
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He might mean that the water company did something just in time for a water change just before Rich went away. I was once told by a local fish shop that people who did water changes at a weekend often found they lost fish shortly afterwards. Someone had the idea of phoning the water company and was told they flushed the pipes out on a weekend. Something about being something to remove limescale deposits or to stop them occurring. After going through several people, the contents of the phone call got a bit garbled.
So the next question for Rich is - when was the last time you did a water change before going away?
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Ok, my MTS are regularly climbing the walls.
Do you mean en masse Sue, or five or six? Cos I have a lot of MTS and at any one time several are climbing.
En masse. A few at any one time is nothing to worry about. It's when they all try to exit the water at the same time that alarm bells should ring.
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Thanks for the sympathy guys, pretty much everything cleaned I decided to bleach clean then wipe back over with clean water just for my own state of mind and leave it to dry for the next few days only my filter pipes left to clean tomorrow.
The plants - I found a website that will send them and does packages of mixed foreground, background and midground plants and colour. Costs £29 for 200+ plants which I had to laugh as I reckon I've spent triple that easily on plants from shops as I'd never considered buying online, which I will be doing from now on.
Regarding the tap water, I have tested it and I do my water changes on a weekend anyway and have never lost fish from that? When I tested my tap water to see what the readings were originally to see what they were it was on a weekend and they matched my tank which was good. I'm starting to lean towards steves theory as I know in my tank the sand was deep in areas and my plec and corys could have disturbed it as I had lots of plants I didn't want to start stirring the subtrate and pulling roots up. Anyway because I only used toys are us sand I've thrown everything away and only kept the rocks and equipment and been out and bought some sand today but only 30kg which before I used around 45/50kg of sand. So hopefully this will be better. I'm also looking at other ways of keeping the sand disturbed as the other half hates snails, I was thinking khuli loaches would work well as they bury and keep the circulation in the sand or would I be better of with a stick and doing it myself?
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Probably a bit of a long shot but thought I'd throw it in; some type of cichlid will pick sand up in their mouth and quite often move it about. I've no experience with cichlids though so don't know whether this would be sufficient disturbance of the substrate. Even if it was there's obviously the important aspect of whether you would want cichlids and they often aren't ideal tank mates for plants.
Even with fish that would disturb the substrate, I would still routinely do it. I'd see it as a similar principle to algae eaters - yes they help but don't rely on them to do it all.
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He might mean that the water company did something just in time for a water change just before Rich went away. I was once told by a local fish shop that people who did water changes at a weekend often found they lost fish shortly afterwards. Someone had the idea of phoning the water company and was told they flushed the pipes out on a weekend. Something about being something to remove limescale deposits or to stop them occurring. After going through several people, the contents of the phone call got a bit garbled.
So the next question for Rich is - when was the last time you did a water change before going away?
Please read This Article: http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-11/rhf/feature/
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I think Rich is well aware of using a dechlorinator to remove chlorine. The chances are that he does have chlorine rather than chloramine, although there are some water companies in the UK switching to chloramine. Though there is always the possibility he forgot to use it on one occasion. Being a new tank, the bacteria would not have fully bedded in and could have been affected by any oversight of this nature. With a mature tank, forgetting the dechlorinator once wouldn't do much harm - some fishkeepers with very mature tanks do not use a dechlorinator at all for small water changes.
I am also aware that in the USA it is common for water companies to add extra chloramine if there has been a lot of rainfall in the area, meaning that the fish keeper has to use extra dechlorinator when this happens. I do not know if this is a common practice in the UK.
In the UK, water companies have been known to pump a pulse of higher pressure though the pipes to dislodge any sediment, and I think this is what the shop was referring to when they said the water company 'did something for limescale'.
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Chloramine poses two significant headaches for aquarists. First, chlorine-neutralizing chemicals such as sodium thiosulfate only neutralize the chlorine portion of chloramine, neglecting an even bigger problem: deadly ammonia. The consequences can be devastating to fish. Although a tank's biological filter will (eventually) convert the ammonia to nitrate, the time it takes to do so may be longer than what your fish can tolerate.
Only an offer at a helpful diagnosis, im sure Sue will have a rebuttal for this as well. :) No Matter. Im gone.
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I'm very lucky in that my tap water is very good and low for all the things it is monitored on and they are all well below the levels It has to be under.
The more I consider steves suggestion the more I feel it was that and something I engineered in using too much subtrate and not stirring up the subtrate. so have bought about half the subtrate I used before after finding a formula to use to tell me the depth and amount i needed. So should stop this happening again.