Major massacre,what happened!?

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fishmaniac

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Nov 27, 2002
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Hey everyone....i need some help

I just moved on Monday....siphoned the water and did about a 50% change into the new tank. We only moved about 10 minutes, so the fish didn't travel long. Anyways, when we put the fish back into the tank, they all started dying.

After about a time period of 60 minutes, I had lost all 30 of my fish.

I did notice that the heater had a little condensation in the heater itself, and am not sure if this is normal, or if this may be part of the reason for our loss.

We tested the water and the Ammonia level was fine and the ph was a little high , but it has always been higher, and they have been fine.

If anyone has any knowledge of what might have happened, that would be great, so I can restart my fish family :)

thanks guys
 
Can you define "fine" for the ammonia level?

How was the tank cleaned out before being filled?

Was a dechlorinator used on the new water?

What symptoms did the fish show before going belly up?
 
We didn't really clean the tank before re-filling....since we only went about 10 minutes, didn't think it would bother. We left a small level of water to cover the gravel

The ammonia level was about .5ppm.

The fish showed symptoms of discoloration, my silver dollars started getting black near the eye and top fin, and most colors faded out of my fish. They started floating to the side, or actually trying to swim upside down. They would freak out right before they died and crash into the gravel.

And we did add dechlorinator.....thats an obvious :) lol
 
Sounds like maybe something nasty in the substrate was released into the water during the move...But wait and see what others say. Any ammonia that registers on a hobbyist test kit isn't fine--it indicates an imbalance between waste and the bacteria that process the waste.
 
Sounds distinctly like poisoning of some kind.

What was the pH?

According to http://www.ornamentalfish.org/code/quality/ammonia.htm, 0.5 ppm ammonia would be toxic at a pH around the 7.8 mark at 25C; at a lower pH if the water were warmer than this.

Am I correct that this is the same tank as they were in before, not a new one?

Any solvents, paints, chemicals in use in the room?

Any measurable nitrite?
 
What a bad break! I was sorry to read this post.

Sounds like pH rose with the water change and ionized ammonium (NH4) converted to toxic ammonia (NH3). The fish died of some toxicity, and this is the clearest one. "Old Tank Syndrome" and "pH shock" are often invoked to cover this situation. That siphoned-out 50% of the old water had enough un-ionized ammonia to kill the fish.

AmQuel during a move locks up ammonia in a form bacteria can still utilize.
 
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hmmm did you add the new fish right away after putting the de-chlorinator in??? sounds to me like a poisioning... its to bad that you lost them all. you should have cleaned it alllll out before you moved. did you put the cycle in htere to cut the stress level to it prolly was a combo of stress and something happened in the water. i'd advise you do some serious water tests and wait till all is perfect before you put in new fish.
 
So we have decided that they died of toxicity. Back to the heater. ARe they supposed to have some condensation inside the glass tube, I am wondering if it broke in some way?

Also, what do you guys suggest to fix my water? Change it all, or keep it and watch it and keep doing my tests.

My ph right now is 7.4...not quite as high as the 7.8 that is mentioned, but it still is a bad deal that I lost my fish, I was kind of attached to some :)

Let me know what I should do as far as continuing with my tank and what my next steps are.....i wont add more until the levels are all good
 
Did the water get cloudy? I've had bacteria blooms occur when the gravel gets stirred up and this can kill fish-my understanding is the bacteria use up all the availble O2. I lost one of my Clown Loaches and several CAE's as well during seperate incidents when this occured. Sorry for your loss :(
 
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