Is Everything dead?

[native]

so everything was good and well in my little world until one day i go to my basement and see everything dead....all my cherry shrimp and 2 glass catfish...so as a little bit of myself dies...i go to sleep...the next i clean everything out..the day after that all the plants are brown....
i have a few marimo balls and java moss on the rocks..
everything is like tannish...

are they dead?

[geofied]

I've brought some plants back from this point, so it may not hurt to keep at least some of the healthiest looking plants/parts around for a bit. Put some in jars of water near a window if you need to evacuate everything, this may show possibiility for revitilization.

Sorry about your mis-fortune.

[Mgamer20o0]

yea i have plants i thought would never make it spring back to life.

[PPMN]

What happened????? Wow. Sorry.

[native]

You know what I have no idea. We had a temperature spike and what's the biggest thing i can come up with so i'm thining everything died from heat. Then again i bought a banana plant and i'm thiking it could've killed everything too. Either way it doesn't look good right now. How long should I leave the light on to bring things back to life? I've already changed the water and added new bacteria. At this point im not sure what to do...
i wanted to make a inverte tank-shrimp; dwarf crays...but my whoel stock is gone...now im thinking of just getting some fish and throwing the plants out....

if anyone has plants they can send me please do too....

I'm going to try and take a picture of the graveyard and post...I'm also going to tank a sample of the water and bring it to the lfs...maybe pick up a minnow or two to help cycle..

even the snails appear to be dead....and i liked them...

[PPMN]

Well unless the water started to boil it seems unlikely that a high temp would have killed absolutely everything. (but I could be wrong)

No little kids visited in the past few days?

[native]

my nephew lives with me....you know once he put in a can of soda in my gold fish tank...but he was like 4...

the water wasn't boiling...but it was hot to the touch...so i gues that should say enough...i'll try to post a pic tomorrow...
if anyone knows a good place to get
java moss
and
marimo balls
at a decent price please let me know...

[native]

Hey Guys I finally took some pics. Please let me know what I can do. also please tell me if it looks familiar. any help is appreciated. I'm going have to restock eventually. so if you guys know where I can get some plants please let me know.

[Mgamer20o0]

what plants are in there and what kind of lighting are you using? how many watts.

[native]

jave moss and marimo balls....
They look much greener in the pic than in person. I'm not sure of the wattage but i'll check when i get home. Everything was going well for a few months....

[Star_Rider]

that java moss is thin..mine usually grows thick in low light.

could possibly be too much light for that particular plant. mine does not do well in a high light tank..it does pretty much the same while other plants thrive.

if the lighting is high enough(2 wpg) consider other plants.
of provide the moss with some shade.

[geofied]

From the photos it looks very much like the kind of thing that happens when things get hot, very hot. Did you have a heater malfunction?

I would remove the remaining Java moss and put it in jars.

[Kyohti]

Aww man... sorry to hear about your losses. Would you be interested in having some hygrophilia once your tank is back to normal? I'd be happy to share. The stuff grows like weeds and would help to shade your moss if you positioned it right. :)

I could also toss in a red ramshorn snail in too if you like those.

[native]

Hi kyohti,
i sent you a pm. I'd take anything as logn as it doesn't need a co2.
So i should remove them?
for how long or toss them?
does anyone know where i can get marimo balls.
I was thinking the same thing...but my heater is supposed to be automatic...
i turned them off though.

is this a lost cause guys?
should i change water again and add new plants?

please let me know what you think?

[Kyohti]

Nothing's a lost cause. But I know where you're coming from. When I started out with my 5-gallon planted, my entire first set of plants died off except for two scrawny stems of reineckii. But I perevered, bought some java fern, hygro, and flame moss, and now I've got a lovely little setup where my reineckii is finally making a beautiful come-back!

I don't use CO2, I just use liquid ferts with plain gravel... but all my plants are pretty basic to keep. The only two that technically need more wattage than I have available are the flame moss and reineckii, but both are getting used to the 2.2 wpg they receive and both are growing well enough.

It's easy to get discouraged, especially when something like this happens... but you've gotta stick it out. You can usually tell if a plant has completely given up the ghost by touch. Some will turn brown or grey or shuck all their leaves and still have some fight in them... but it's when they get mushy or spongey in texture that you know they're completely gone. That's been my experience with aquatics thusfar.

[native]

being that moss and the marimo are soft to the touch...should i use that rule?

[tanker]

I do not think anything will kill Java Moss. It will come back.

PS--Lights on about 10-12 hours per day only.

[native]

so the marimo balls are floating....
i opened one up and it was green inside. i did this a few times and found the same thing. They were even pearling!!!
I got the water test today. The following are the parameters
PH-7.0
ammonia-4.0
nitrite-2.0

I added a mess load of biozyme to the tank and they said that might be why the other parameters are messed up.
im going to do a change today and see if it helps.
i still need more marimo balls if anyone knows where i can get them cheap.
thanks for all your help guys.

Good News!!!
my siamese fish in my upstairs tank mated!!!
i'll open a new thread for that...so don't answer about it here.. i'll let you know when i do though

[native]

bad news...so i changed the filter cartridges and did a water change but the water parameters got worse...the ammonia went up, the nitrate went up, and the ph went down...