Added a bunch of rocks... one fatality already...

C

cschilly

AC Members
Jan 20, 2008
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Taylorville, IL
So I found a bunch of awesome rocks this weekend in the Current River in southern Missouri. I soaked them in water and a little bleach Sunday night and Monday, leaving them outside to soak up some sun. Monday night I changed the water in their container, adding some tap water decholorinator. Today I washed them all in hot water before I added them to the tank. I did a 50% water change at the same time. All the fish started acting weird, just hanging at the bottom and breathing funny. After 10 minutes or so, one of the fish died in a very spectacular manner - he was swimming in these tight loops for a couple minutes, then went down to the bottom and died. It's been 45 minutes or so now and no one else has died. They've started swimming around a little more now. Hopefully I'll only have 1 fatality. Any ideas what might have happened?

Here's the dead fish:
IMG_0273.jpg

Here's the Venustus breathing hard on the bottom:
IMG_0276.jpg

And here's a couple of the tank with the new rocks (I think it looks good, if it wasn't for the freaked out fish):
IMG_0274.jpg

IMG_0277.jpg
 
Looks nice. Sounds like the fish was unsettled by all the activity and new additions and died. I've never seen that happen but one of my Africans occassionally flips out and swims in tight circles when I turn the lights on of a morning.
 
The venustus croaked now... that was my favorite guy in the tank too. Some of the other guys are swimming around a little better now. I was afraid some of the rocks may have had some chemicals in them or something. We shall see.
 
could be some iron in the rocks which will mess with your PH. Are you sure all of the bleach was rinsed off?
 
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add rocks = dead fish

I would remove the rocks.

it is possible something was on the rocks. or something is in the rocks. some of those appear to be porous.. were those added too?
 
hoo boy. Star rider has it right - don't over think this one for now. New rocks out, large water change.
 
Test your water to start with. Then I would drop some Prime in the water just in case you did not get all of the bleach off of the rocks. I would also suspect that there is probably something else on these rocks that you may of introduced from the river. If it were me, I would remove the rocks from the aquarium and only put rocks in the tank that are specifically made for aquariums.

Marinemom
 
Thanks guys... I'll take the rocks out and do another water change. I guess I'll have to stick to rocks from the fish store. Two fish lost is two too many.
 
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