12-hour killer disease? (Attention Jeremiah)
- Thread starter hbeverb
- Start date
I just want to thank you for posting about this and let you know how much we share in your sadness. It's important that we pick through the details when something like this happens. That's how we learn from our mistakes and it prevents us from repeating them. Even though it's necessary, I know this can be an excruciatingly painful thing to go through right now after losing such a well loved pet. I've been through that myself, as have our other members. I just hope it helps you to know how much we appreciate your sharing this with us.
You raise a lot of questions in your post, so I'll try to answer the ones that I can.
Of all the fish I've ever had, goldfish and bettas are my favorites, and I had most recently had a betta that actually lived beyond his expected lifespan to almost 4 years.
I've heard a 2-year lifespan for bettas too. I don't know where that comes from. I guess it's easier for people to decide when a 2 year old fish dies that it must have been old age. (They say the same thing about goldfish who don't survive much longer than this in small tanks or bowls - never knowing a goldfish will naturally reach a foot and half long and can live for decades.) My parents had Bettas while I was growing up and I've been keeping them myself since the mid-80s. It was always normal for the Bettas we had to live 4-5 years.
I read up on goldfish and that they produce a lot of waste, and I read about the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate cycle, and I knew that a bigger aquarium would be better. However, I am the type of person who thinks that hard work and diligence can overcome any problem, so once I read that CHEMICALS were the reason goldfish needed bigger space, not just swimming room as so many people erroneously think, I thought, "I can do this! All I have to do is change the water often and monitor the relevant chemicals, and I can stay within the apartment rules AND get the kind of fish I really want." Apparently, this is next to impossible, although it worked for 2 years.
Goldfish need (a minimum of) 15 or 20 gallons of water/tank size per fish, depending on which variety it is. In addition to that, they need at least twice the filtration as tropical fish, if not four times as much. With both a small tank size and typical tropical filtration rate, you weren't set up for this. There was nothing you could do given these limitations to make up for that. Even without the pH crash happening, your fish wasn't going to make it. Had he not died from such low acidic conditions, the water quality was still degrading slowly the larger he grew. He was already beginning to show symptoms of this according to the problems you described. It was only a matter of time, as he kept growing bigger, for other fatal health issues to develop.
I depended on test strips that I didn't know were unreliable. I had no idea until this post that I shouldn't trust these or that I shouldn't trust the free water testing at pet stores (who actually use the same strips!).
I've been using the API test kit for years. Luckily, this is what my local LFS "expert" told me to buy. Unfortunately, he also recommended all those chemical additives and buffers to artificially adjust the water, so I had devasting deaths to go through too many years ago.
Since I was in a huge worry to get to work, all I could do was change even more of the water and hope to raise the pH more. I was starting to suspect that there was something wrong with the strips at this point and took a water sample to a pet store that evening. Again, as I said earlier, they came up with the same acidity results as my strips had shown, but it was too late at this point. How could I reconcile the fact that two water changes in quick succession could make the water MORE acidic instead of less? If I had known how bad it was, I would have taken him out of there immediately, but if my Brita filter is to blame, that wouldn't have even helped either.
No, you had no way of knowing based on the information you had received. This wasn't your fault, you took excellent care of your goldfish and should still take pride in all the good things you did for him.
4. I used a Brita filter on the water I put in the aquarium. Actually, I'm still not sure if this was a mistake. I had been using the same pitcher to do water changes for 2 years and never had a problem with it. In fact, someone at a pet store told me I should filter the water here, since Ann Arbor's water is off the hardness scale on the strips! She told me that that would soften the water some, and it made sense to me that I should filter out as much junk as possible before letting my fish live in it. I also used a dechlorinator (of course) and a little aquarium salt.
There are other ways to soften hard water in easy/natural ways. I know that adding some peat beneath the substrate or in the filter box is one method. But I don't know enough about that (yet) to advise you further. Other people here can help you find simple methods to adjust pH and hardness without using a Brita filter or chemical additives. If someone else doesn't offer that in this thread, I'd suggest you post that question in our General Freshwater forum.
I am also unsure if getting live plants was a smart decision. It seemed to help in the short term, but maybe it did something I don't know about to the water? It was Elodea, if anyone knows.
Elodea, aka Anacharis, is an excellent plant to add to most aquariums and it's a great choice to have around for goldfish, in particular. It's a very fast growing plant that takes in high levels of nitrogen (nitrates) from the water... this helps with filtration by removing some of those wastes and reduces algae growth.
I hope this sheds some light on the course of events that lead to this poor fish's death. I feel terrible about it, and I shouldn't have thought I could overcome the small aquarium size.
We understand what you were doing and what your reasons were. You described the details so well in your post. It was obvious how much you cared for your fish and how hard you tried to do all the right things for him.
However, I am still perplexed by how sudden this all was. Why did the acidity suddenly drop in the first place, if I didn't do anything really out of the ordinary? I had the same routine for two years, and yet this one time I get a severe chemical change like this.
That's something I can't really answer, either. I don't know how consistent those filters are... I've never used them. I have heard the efficiency of this type of filtering is poor compared to a 3-4 stage r/o system (which is expensive).
If both tests showed there was little to no ammonia in the water, how did the water get so acidic? If I added fresh water, how did that not neutralize it? Was there some chemical in our water supply that I didn't know about because of the recent snow/flood or other reasons? Now I'm almost scared to drink it!
Since you were using test strips instead of a liquid kit, you don't know there was little to no ammonia in the water. That's the problem with those strips. It isn't just a lack of precision, sometimes they show 0 levels when conditions are very high and toxic. Sometimes they detect levels ammonia, nitrite, or nitrates that aren't actually there. Sometimes the person gets lucky and the results are close to the real conditions. It's almost like flipping a coin. You can't go by them at all even as a general indicator.
I understand that this is ultimately my fault, so I just want everyone to know how sorry I am. This fish didn't die from lack of care!
I know how hard this is and how bad you must feel right now. But please don't beat yourself up over this. You aren't to blame and this isn't your fault.
The chemistry of a completely closed system like this is very complex and it's all interrelated. There's a lot more going on in a tiny ecosystem like we have in aquariums that we don't ever measure. We can't even buy tests to check on all the variables.
Thanks, Kashta.
Yeah, most of the sources I saw on bettas (and hearsay) said they live about 2 or 3 years, so I'm glad to have that new information. I actually didn't WANT a betta at the time -- I was in college, and my boyfriend's roommate took us with him to pick out a betta with him. I ended up picking what I thought was the prettiest and fiestiest one, and we set him up in a bowl in their dorm room. Unfortunately, he put the bowl on top of some really big speakers, which irritated the fish. The roommate went through a bunch of personal issues and ended up suddenly leaving the dorm, and I was left to take care of him. Of course, I grew to love him, since I'm such an animal lover! At this point, one of his gills was already inside-out (or damaged -- never could tell what happened), possibly from hitting the sides of the bowl while going berserk on top of the loud speaker? I never really figured it out. Anyway, he made several trips in the car from dorm room to home to dorm room. His death was actually really timely -- he died about a week before I was leaving for 10 months in Germany. I was going to leave him with my parents, who know nothing about fish! He had such a great "personality." When someone entered the room, he would come to the front of the bowl and wave with just one of his pectoral fins. He would also "stalk" his pellets and attack them violently, and you could hear him chewing it up. Despite his gill deformity, he was a pretty hardy fish.
I think I'm going to take a break from fish for a while (my master's thesis is due a week from today -- yikes!). I also lost another pet this year, my childhood pet. My parents, who live about a thousand miles away from where I'm living for grad school, had to put my old kitty to sleep. We had had her since I was in 7th grade! I don't know how long it will be before I decide to have pets again.
I appreciate everyone's sympathy so much!
Yeah, most of the sources I saw on bettas (and hearsay) said they live about 2 or 3 years, so I'm glad to have that new information. I actually didn't WANT a betta at the time -- I was in college, and my boyfriend's roommate took us with him to pick out a betta with him. I ended up picking what I thought was the prettiest and fiestiest one, and we set him up in a bowl in their dorm room. Unfortunately, he put the bowl on top of some really big speakers, which irritated the fish. The roommate went through a bunch of personal issues and ended up suddenly leaving the dorm, and I was left to take care of him. Of course, I grew to love him, since I'm such an animal lover! At this point, one of his gills was already inside-out (or damaged -- never could tell what happened), possibly from hitting the sides of the bowl while going berserk on top of the loud speaker? I never really figured it out. Anyway, he made several trips in the car from dorm room to home to dorm room. His death was actually really timely -- he died about a week before I was leaving for 10 months in Germany. I was going to leave him with my parents, who know nothing about fish! He had such a great "personality." When someone entered the room, he would come to the front of the bowl and wave with just one of his pectoral fins. He would also "stalk" his pellets and attack them violently, and you could hear him chewing it up. Despite his gill deformity, he was a pretty hardy fish.
I think I'm going to take a break from fish for a while (my master's thesis is due a week from today -- yikes!). I also lost another pet this year, my childhood pet. My parents, who live about a thousand miles away from where I'm living for grad school, had to put my old kitty to sleep. We had had her since I was in 7th grade! I don't know how long it will be before I decide to have pets again.
I appreciate everyone's sympathy so much!
This posting has been incredibly informative. The documentation provided plus pictures is almost academic in nature. I have never seen anything like what is contained in the photographs and had no clue as to what this condition could be and I consider myself an experienced aquarist. I would like to see this posting as a sticky as this information is so well documented--what do your moderators think? It could prevent others from making the same mistakes.
hbeverb, don't feel so terrible! you acted on your best judgement and with the best intentions.
I'm not sure that your Brita filter was not to blame, but it could certainly be something else. If you had a pocket of rotting food trapped in the gravel that got stirred up, a pocket or anaerobic gas that escaped, or if the buffering capacity of the water dropped too low, all of these could set off a pH crash when the water was changed. Even if the Brita water was safe (it is certainly safe for you to drink!) it may have just been a trigger.
I do want to say that chemicals are not the only reason goldfish cannot live in 5 gallon tanks. Goldfish, like all cyprinids and many other fish as well, produce a pheromone that stunts growth.
As it builds up between water changes, it will cause the skeleton and muscular structure of the fish to stop growing. However, the internal organs will continue to grow and eventually the fish can die of organ failure.
Additionally, stress and a (little-studied) "crowding factor" have major effects on goldfish growth that can add to stunting as well.
Even if you were able to somehow account for and negate all of those factors, remember that with proper nutrition, optimum water conditions and a suitable tank, a fantail like yours should reach at least 8 inches in body length. At 2 years old, he should have measured at least 4 inches in body length, if not more. He would barely have been able to turn around in the 5 gallon tank. So physical size is a big part of the reason a fantail should be kept in at least a 20-30 gallon tank.
But again, don't feel so bad about your little goldfish. You've learned and hopefully when you are able to have a larger tank, you can keep another goldfish and enjoy it as much as this one. Best of luck to you.
I'm not sure that your Brita filter was not to blame, but it could certainly be something else. If you had a pocket of rotting food trapped in the gravel that got stirred up, a pocket or anaerobic gas that escaped, or if the buffering capacity of the water dropped too low, all of these could set off a pH crash when the water was changed. Even if the Brita water was safe (it is certainly safe for you to drink!) it may have just been a trigger.
I do want to say that chemicals are not the only reason goldfish cannot live in 5 gallon tanks. Goldfish, like all cyprinids and many other fish as well, produce a pheromone that stunts growth.
As it builds up between water changes, it will cause the skeleton and muscular structure of the fish to stop growing. However, the internal organs will continue to grow and eventually the fish can die of organ failure.
Additionally, stress and a (little-studied) "crowding factor" have major effects on goldfish growth that can add to stunting as well.
Even if you were able to somehow account for and negate all of those factors, remember that with proper nutrition, optimum water conditions and a suitable tank, a fantail like yours should reach at least 8 inches in body length. At 2 years old, he should have measured at least 4 inches in body length, if not more. He would barely have been able to turn around in the 5 gallon tank. So physical size is a big part of the reason a fantail should be kept in at least a 20-30 gallon tank.
But again, don't feel so bad about your little goldfish. You've learned and hopefully when you are able to have a larger tank, you can keep another goldfish and enjoy it as much as this one. Best of luck to you.
I am also sorry for both of your losses this year. I also know from experience how stressful it can be to get through graduate theses, as well. I think that most of us here on the forum are thinking nothing but good thoughts for you. When enough time passes, I hope that you will reconsider the aquarium hobby. It will probably be hard to resist, seeing how much you have enjoyed fish keeping in the past. Being even better informed than you already were, you will probably get even more enjoyment out of it in the future, when (and if) you are ready.
Good luck on your thesis and best wishes.
Good luck on your thesis and best wishes.
I agree with the fact that the filtered water probably doesn't have the buffering capacity to keep a stable pH. Biological processes within the aquarium will eat away at the KH, so I have no doubt that a pH crash actually happened. However, fish physiologically adapt to pH changes almost instantly and are, for the most part, unaffected. For example, planted tanks with large-scale Co2 injection experience large swings in pH over the course of one day without harming fish. Problems occur when TDS levels change rapidly, which will cause a great deal of stress on fish. Thus, "pH shock" is actually "osmotic shock". However, if the pH dropped below 6.0 I could see where there there could be other problems. For instance fish have troubles with sodium intake at very acidic levels, and more importantly the effectiveness of your bacteria colony is reduced greatly at low pH's (growth is stemmed). So this 5 gallon tank could have potentially seen a large upswing in ammonia over the course of 24 hours which would attribute to the damaged fins, inflamed gills, and lethargic nature of the fish. This also wouldn't even take into account the length and intensity of previous ammonia exposure.
