New Filter = dead fishies?

[polocrosseplyer]

I did a 40% water change and then at lunch went and got a new filter - with a sponge for more bacteria... i put it in the filter along with my older filter... and one fish died probably 10 minutes later.. though he was fine at first... and the other 2 were having a marvelous time in the clean water since i was 3 days late on the w/c.. anyways came to work to find them both dead.. now all i have is snails which will work if we get a puffer....... any thought that there is something wrong with the new filter material ?..... or am i just a crappy fish keeper? Thanks for the input...

ps: who does aquariumboard.com??

 

[alireza]

Very sorry to hear that. When changing filters it's important to make sure that the biological filtering bacteria are not disrupted. However, since in your case the deaths happened so quickly, there was either a problem even before you changed the filter or the new filter gave off some harmful chemical. So a few questions before we can speculate about the problem:
1. What kind of fish did you have?
2. Any information about the type and capacity of your old and new filters?
3. Do you know the water parameters before and after changing water and replacing filter?
4. Did you rinse the new filter and the new media before installing it?
5. And I assume your tank has already cycled, right?

 

[jennypenny]

Just to clear things up, you had the old and new filter running?


If that is the case my best guess would be that there was a harmful substance in the new filter. Can you give us more info?

 

[polocrosseplyer]

tetra's - one lemon and 2 flame

it is a topfin 10 gal filter and i had just a charcoal(sp) filter in it and switched to one with biological filteration - sponge, charcoal and something else, probably ammonia remover stuff

i do not know my water parameters - it is cycled, but i took my test kit home over the holiday and i didnt have any more dip strips left

and i did not rinse the filter at first.. then once the lemon died and i remembered i need to rinse i rinsed it....

what kind of harmful substances would they put in a filter that is supposed to go in the water?

i just did a 10% water change just in case and to keep the snails happy -

one piece of background though and maybe this just had a bad effect on the whole tank is that the counselor's kid - who is an evil little snot - "somehow" got into my office even though his dad and sister were supposed to be watching him and he dumped about 1/4 of flaked food in there which stayed for about 3 days.. till i came in... but that was 1.5 weeks ago..

 

[twig]

Carbon, for example, can suck in harmful chemicals in the air... It's recommended that you soak'em in water for 5 mins before introducing to tank so those gasses don't go into the tank >>;

 

[polocrosseplyer]

welp... looks like this was all my fault.. thanks guys for the information.. to bad i cant apologize to my fishies.

 

[Rbishop]

Carbon, for example, can suck in harmful chemicals in the air... It's recommended that you soak'em in water for 5 mins before introducing to tank so those gasses don't go into the tank >>;

Never heard that...can you link a reference please? Thanks.