fish kill preminition

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mountain_webste

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May 2, 2007
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so around 8pm was going into the kitchen to get a dessert for the wife and I and for some odd reason I had a feeling something wasn't right with the tank in my basement. Almost wrote off the feeling, but decided to run down to check on the tank and to my dismay found what can only be described as a fish kill. Lost 2 bala sharks, 3 rainbow bosemanis, 4 turqoise rainbows and 1 rasbora. Particularly painful were the loss of 2 of the bosemani's that were full grown (5+") and my wife's favorite fish in the tank and the bala that was ~7+" that I'd had for 4 or 5 years. I can think of nothing worse in the hobby then having to tear apart your tank to look for bodies.

Last night, I'd added some new fish that had been in QT and had done a 30+% water change. I'm speculating on the cause, but I'd been trying to jump start some java fern growth and had been dosing flourish excel. I was sloppy last night and didn't measue the dose of excel, just added some over the course of the water change. I think I OD'ed the excel. Tank had been stable for a long time. I dug out my old test kit and amonia readings were <.025.

Ironically, I broke down and cleanned my QT tank after transferring the new fish yesterday...Guess I have to getting up and running.

Anyway, I'm not sure the purpose of my post other then to get some thoughts down on "paper"...cathartic exersice I suppose.
 
Sorry for your loss. I'm just getting started in the actual aquarium biz had a 3 gal fish bowl and managed to keep 3 ghost fish alive in that for 6 months. That was a pain in the *** no filter constant water changes. just upgraded to a 37 gal and I hope that it turns into a great place to keep a happy healthy tank to get a decent amount of fish going
 
That's awful! I'm sorry for the loss of so many of your fish. You know, I've been reading of more excel mishaps lately. Makes me scared to try it even though I bought some a while ago. The one incident I'm remembering was when fish swam through the Excel as it was being added. Just those fish were effrected, others in the tank were ok.
 
Dang that sucks, poor fishies.
 
I've read that Excel can be overdosed by up to several times, when used to fight algae problems so I'm not sure how it could cause such a massive fish kill, unless as others said, the fish swam right into the direct dosing. Seachem even addresses Excel's use against algae on the FAQ page for Excel. I've never used it, since I have easy to grow plants in my tanks, but when dosing most stuff into my tank, other than my dechlor, I usually mix it with some removed tank water first, then pour it back into the tank. Since others have read/heard that this has happened before, that might be the thing to do with Excel if/when using it in the future.

Sorry for you fish loss.

EDIT -

Something else I'm thinking about, while Seachem's site says you can dose Excel at any time, they also say that the best time would be when the lights are on since the plants would be doing their photosynthesis at that time and putting more O2 into the water. Were your lights still on when you dose or did you turn them out after dosing? You mentioned in your post that it was 8pm. http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/FlourishExcel.html
 
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GoldLenny said:
I've read that Excel can be overdosed by up to several times, when used to fight algae problems so I'm not sure how it could cause such a massive fish kill, unless as others said, the fish swam right into the direct dosing. Seachem even addresses Excel's use against algae on the FAQ page for Excel. I've never used it, since I have easy to grow plants in my tanks, but when dosing most stuff into my tank, other than my dechlor, I usually mix it with some removed tank water first, then pour it back into the tank. Since others have read/heard that this has happened before, that might be the thing to do with Excel if/when using it in the future.

Sorry for you fish loss.

EDIT -

Something else I'm thinking about, while Seachem's site says you can dose Excel at any time, they also say that the best time would be when the lights are on since the plants would be doing their photosynthesis at that time and putting more O2 into the water. Were your lights still on when you dose or did you turn them out after dosing? You mentioned in your post that it was 8pm. http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/FlourishExcel.html
Click to expand...

The lights were on, I have them timed from roughly noon - midnight so they are on in the evening when I'm home. The night of the water change I dosed the excel into the bucket while I was filling, not a direct dose into the tank. However, I've dosed directly into the tank before without issue too (as well as into my heavily planted 46).

Also, the deaths were not instantanious. The night of the incident, I probably wrapped up tank maintainence around 9 but was in the room watching the the tank/TV until about 11:30 or so and did not notice any unusual behavour from my fish.

Fourtunately, it seems the whole situation is stabalized. I checked this morning and there were no additional deaths.

The more I think about it, there are other oddities to the whole situation that just have me puzzled:

You would think that smaller fish would be more supceptable yet the three largest fish in the tank were among the casulaties (and 9 of my 10 rasboras are fine)

I have a pack of 8 clown loaches that I would deem the most sensitive fish in the tank yet they all survived and seemed no worse for wear after a water change.

Speculation here, but Excel appears more dense than water so generally sinks in the water column yet my bottom dwellers (loaches and bristle nose plecs) were fine.

Maybe just a coincidence, but - with the exception of the one rasbora - the deaths seem species specific: lost 2 of 3 balas, 3 of 4 bosemani, 4 of 5 turqouise rainbows. My 4 emerald rainbows, 6 western rainbows, 4 banded rainbows, 8 clowns, and 2 BN plecs showed no signs of distress.
 
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