Emergency spinning fish

FisheyLisa

FisheyLisa

Fish-a-roni
Nov 2, 2004
502
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I have least killifish. recently had trouble with them getting sucked into filter, so I removed the filter and did a 100% h2o change yesturday. They were fine all of yesturday. One was wobbling, spinning erratically when starteled, but I thought she was one of the filter fish that was saved.

this morning, the fish are all spinning erratically or floating still at the top (still alive). They make little twirles. I htink their color is a little pale too.

I haven't any water parameters as i am still in freak out mode. The temp is 74, there are about 15 fish, and the water was from yesturday- conditioned sitting tap water. The tank is 5 gallons. more numbers to follow.

is it swim bladder, did I just kill a tankful of fish? Did the 1st spinning fish give it to the rest?

help!!
 
ok the ammonia is 4.0, pH6.8, no3 -0, no2-0.
There hasn't been any aeration. I don't understand the ammonia jump if I just put this water in new yesturday.
 
The problem is that you removed the filter. In doing so, you removed the ability of your system to metabolise ammonia. This therefore jumped and killed your fish.

Fifteen fish in five gallons of water with no ammonia metabolising capability - I'm not surprised in the least at the levels you report.
 
yeah...they are really tiny- probably 5-6 inches of fish, so I didn't think that one day would make the difference.I assumed there was more metabolizing bacteria in the gravel etc.

I am now thinking that their gills were effected by the ammonia, hence the swirley swimming. I added sea salt and did about a 90% h20 change.I put the filter back on (it had been running on my 15 gallon while not on the 5g) and stuffed sponge in all the large holes I could find. It is a mini whisper low flow, so I hope that on the lowest setting with stuff jammed in it, it will do the job.

lets hope. well I hope at least.
lisa
 
Without any filter for current the bacteria in the gravel wouldn't be able to get at the ammonia :/ No experience, but people say that HOURS without a filter is deadly, much less a day.
 
Some people keep these fish in filterless tanks, just doing water changes. Is it because I already established certain amt of bacteria and then overloaded it?
 
An established tank is going to have a bacterial colony big enough for the fish load. In an unfiltered tank, those bacteria will be all in the gravel. In yours, most of them were in the filter. So you removed the filter, and thereby removed most of the bacteria.

The water change will help with the ammonia and nitrite, and the salt with the nitrite.
 
That's a whole lot of ammonia in a short time, especially with a 100% wate change. Of curse, it's a small tank too. Still, it begs the question: Do you know what is in your tap water? Do they only add chlorine or do they add Chloramines. Also, what water conditioner do you treat with? You mentioned conditioned, sitting water. Had the water only aged? Or by conditioned did you mean you added a conditioner, and if so, which brand name did you use?
 
I used ammolock. I have aquamel too, but I use that more with my bigger tank. I filled the water bucket a couple of days ago, let what would precipitate out, put in the ammolock. There was a bit of old water because I couldn't syphon the tank totally dry. Put fish in...one was near death. The fish were to slowly swim out the soda bottle I had, so I didn't have to dump more dirtly water in. The near death fish recovered, and did the spinning swimming thing. All the others were fine. I fed them twice during the 24 hr period. there was left over food, but no more than normal. This morn all the fish were swimming in spirals, ammonia was 4.0. I immediately changed it, added salt and baking soda (for pH). Now they are spriralling less, but still kind of pale and not normal. Filter is back.

My water is acidic- as low or lower than the fish test reads. I have been adding limited amts of baking soda to control. Otherwise it is 0 ammonia, nitrate and nitrite.

there have been many recent fish deaths cause they get caught in the filter, perhaps it was left over in the little bit of water in the gravel. My gravel is also very thick...like deep. Perhaps it held on to more bad water than I thought.

Is ammonia poisoning lasting? Will they recoup and not act weird? I know it damages gill tissue.
 
the ammonia will do it - especially to those little fish - i'm not concerned about 15 of them in a 5 gal they are like 1/4 of an inch big - Trickster pup keeps these fish and seems to be an expert on them - he says you can keep tons of them in very small tanks
 
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