Can anyone help determine what killed fish after water change?
- Thread starter Fish Frenzy
- Start date
Recently I had power shut off to have new feed wires installed to my house from the street. They used the fire hydrant to fill one of their trucks. I noticed after that in doing so they stirred up something because I had brown water coming out for the whole day after. My power only ended up being off for like 3 hours and I was able to run my pump off a power inverter in my car.
Because you do regular maintenance, I don't think it is hydrogen sulfide poisoning. This usually occurs after major cleaning of a neglected tank. People report vacuuming up a lot of dark stuff (the vacuumed water is dark) from the substrate. The fish die suddenly. In doing their "thorough" cleaning, they manage to stir up and release pockets of hydrogen sulfide gas trapped in the substrate.
I have a sand substrate, and don't have any reports of dark water being vacuumed. But I do manage to stir up the substrate at least every two weeks to prevent algae growth on it.
I will look into hydrogen sulfide gas poisoning, thanks.
Given that aquaria generally are not grounded I would not think so. I accidentally gave myself a decent shock with an improperly sealed light unit, the fish were totally fine though
Not that 6 hours ia a long time for a well maintained tank, but if the cans have not been cleaned out lately, if there is a lot of gunk inside, without flow, that gunk can go anaerobic very quickly, and "if" it did, once the power came back on, could have burped out a slug of toxic stuff (H2SO4 was already suggested) that may have been lethal.
This is one of the reasons I stopped using cans years ago. Power outages were common, and I noticed the media in cans would quickly begin smell like rotten eggs (H2SO4) if the flow was not maintained, so during any extended outage, I would pull the cans part, and toss media in an open shallow container of clean tank water and rinse out any buildup to help prevent the media from going anaerobic.
Although gunk is sometimes visible, H2SO4 itself is colorless.
You mention the Central American fish were unaffected, which seems reasonable because they adapted to often fluctuating conditions in nature, whereas rift lake species come from very stable conditions in nature.
This is one of the reasons I stopped using cans years ago. Power outages were common, and I noticed the media in cans would quickly begin smell like rotten eggs (H2SO4) if the flow was not maintained, so during any extended outage, I would pull the cans part, and toss media in an open shallow container of clean tank water and rinse out any buildup to help prevent the media from going anaerobic.
Although gunk is sometimes visible, H2SO4 itself is colorless.
You mention the Central American fish were unaffected, which seems reasonable because they adapted to often fluctuating conditions in nature, whereas rift lake species come from very stable conditions in nature.
This sounds like it could have been the case, but why did it not affect them for more than 2 and a half days. The fish were not affected until 24 hrs after conducting a water change so 3 days total after the outage. I do not have any reports of odd smells, or anything out of the usual as this aquarium usually smells similar to a garden of flowers much different than my other aquarium.
It seems like it had something to do with the change of water. I will definitely use a power outage as a chance to remove build up, though uncommon.
How can I tell if I added too hot/drastic of a temperature difference?
It was sad but I did see only one of the fish pass, and it basically inverted and was having rapid breathing. They all gradually passed not all at the same exact time(but all within the 24hrs), none of the fish were gasping for air.
For anyone to really judge, details like exact temp of tank water, compared to new water, would need to be known, tank water parameters like DO, pH, .etc etc, the chlorine residual of tap water added would need to be known, and none of these parameters have been provided so any guesses that that any of us as outsider observervers take, are just that, wild guesses. And who would think to do these tests just because of a simple power outage?
As an example, a power surge fried my 1800gph pump more than a week ago, and because of the Covid isolation policy I have been unable to get to the mainland to buy another.....
so my 180 tank has been without significant water movement almost two weeks now.
So far only one 12" goby has died.
I suspect it hadn't had enough oxygen.
Yet a dozen cichlids, 2 tetras, and a pleco are still arguably doing fine,.... why haven't they died too????.
They are all .....less than half the size of the goby, could that be the reason? do they require less O2?
or.....Is it because the goby died leaving less oxygen demand in the tank?
Or ....could it have been because I have been adding 4 or 5 gallons of rain water every hour, and overflowing the tank into the sump to keep beneficial bacteria alive?
Could the lower pH of the rain water, been too osmotically deficient for the normal requirements of the goby? but not too soft for the cichlids and tetras?
In actuality, there's really no way to know.
As an example, a power surge fried my 1800gph pump more than a week ago, and because of the Covid isolation policy I have been unable to get to the mainland to buy another.....
so my 180 tank has been without significant water movement almost two weeks now.
So far only one 12" goby has died.
I suspect it hadn't had enough oxygen.
Yet a dozen cichlids, 2 tetras, and a pleco are still arguably doing fine,.... why haven't they died too????.
They are all .....less than half the size of the goby, could that be the reason? do they require less O2?
or.....Is it because the goby died leaving less oxygen demand in the tank?
Or ....could it have been because I have been adding 4 or 5 gallons of rain water every hour, and overflowing the tank into the sump to keep beneficial bacteria alive?
Could the lower pH of the rain water, been too osmotically deficient for the normal requirements of the goby? but not too soft for the cichlids and tetras?
In actuality, there's really no way to know.
