I'm so sorry for your loss.
It doesn't sound as if you did anything wrong during your water change. It's possible your local water authority is messing with disinfection levels due to a water main break, problem at the plant or even due to the weather.
Thanks. I think I may have overdosed on the chemicals. After talking to a friend that runs a lfs and has much more knowledge than me, I'm aware you don't need to use maintenance chemicals like fritz 360 when doing water changes. I guess I was always in the habit of chems when you do wc. That being said I think I may have overdosed with the safe and fritz 360 at the same time and depleted oxygen in the tank. Not sure that explains the cloudiness though.
I'm sure it's not the Seachem or Fritz products that caused this.
Did you ever try drinking out of the hose when you were a kid? Do you remember how horrible the water tasted if it had been sitting in the hose for awhile and you didn't let the water run long enough to rinse out the hose? I do, and I always make sure the hose is thoroughly rinsed for several minutes before I use it for aquarium water. This is obviously grasping at straws, but it definitely sounds as though some type of toxin made its way into your tank during the water change...and in fairly significant quantities also, to have caused such an abrupt and total die-off.
The tests we perform on our water are for specific substances and parameters: ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, etc. but there are countless other potentially dangerous substance that could make their way from a household environment into an aquarium and kill our fish. A standard test kit simply won't alert us to the presence of these. I've lost fish and reptiles when an exhaust fan crapped out and paint fumes accumulated in a previous fish room of mine. Do you have kids that might have spilled something into the tank, or maybe a cat that might have knocked something over that fell in? Is your tank covered? Soap or lotion of some kind on your hands?
Sadly, there's a good chance that you will never know what happened. I know that right now it's easy to get totally frustrated and just chuck the whole aquarium idea; hopefully, you'll re-group and come back stronger than ever, maybe with a fresh outlook on ways to protect your tank from various types of contamination. Good luck.
Heard. I mean, no I barely remember being younger or drinking out of a hose, but I understand what you are saying. After speaking with a friend that owns a lfs I think they chemicals may have been the culprit. He explained to me that the fritz 360 and similar products, there is no need to dose with these when doing wc. So that in conjunction with the safe may have been overdosage and depleted oxygen from the water. I went to breakfast, came back home, and my gar is now dead as well.
I may be being paranoid at this point, but I did recently get the exterior of my house painted. He did not use my hose, however he did disconnect it for a time when he used his own for his pressure washer... My friend thinks it's possible that may have something to do with it, but thinks it's much more unlikely than the chem overdose scenario. There are no kids in my house, no guest, full sized lids. The cats don't get onto the tank as it's so high, and I have sealed lids. We're leaning towards chem overdose unfortunately. I was always under the impression these chems, as they state, are harmless and safe for your aquatic life... I never really thought overdosing a little was something to worry about.
Hmmmm i cant say anything about those two products as ive never actually used them but its hard to believe you actually overdosed. I would switch back to prime in the future. Good ol prime.
I also suspect contamination. The hose issue is a real thing, pretty sure ive lost fish to contaminated hose chemicals or the like before. I take it seriously enough now that i got an all rubber agricultural hose just for water changes and i habitually rinse it out thoroughly before every use.
Very easy for things/substances to make their way into tank during a water change. Id be lying if i said that small amounts of spilt beer never got into my tanks, but i am very careful to watch for things that might topple and get into the water nowadays.
Do you happen to have disrespectful/inconsiderate houseguests with any regularity or frequency? Or where there some around that night in particular? Nuisance climbing animals like cats or ferrets in the house?
I struggle to come up with anything else that would wipe a tank out so quick. Hopefully the cause becomes apparent soon so you know not to do it again. Condolences for your losses, i was watching your tank progress and look forward to see what you put together next.
So I recently had the exterior of my house painted and he disconnected my hose to use his own, so it was disconnected for a short amount of time. My friend I spoke with said anythings possible but thinks it's much more unlikely than the chem overdose scenario. I don't have house guest or anything of the such. I own my home and live alone w/ my gf. Cats don't get near this tank let alone on top of it, and it's completely sealed up top. My stand is over 40" high and I need a ladder to get on top of this tank. So I've mentioned it above but since I'm individually replying to people I'll say what I've said above. After speaking with my friend that owns a lfs he thinks I may have overdosed with chems and depleted oxygen from the water. He informed me a chem like fritz 360 doesn't need to be used during wc, and that combined with the safe, I may have over done it... I appreciate the words of encouragement. I think my friends talked me into moving past this and restocking. He's even sending me some options he's come up with later today, and while he can't give me the fish for free, he already mentioned he'll hook me up with his prices w/o mark ups which is really cool of him.
Safe should be 1/4tsp per 300g. If you overdose there is the possibility of all saturated oxygen being absorbed.
Yes. So I dosed 2 1/4tsp for the 560g tank, incooperating some extra volume in the rather large canister. However the fritz 360 is 1tsp for 500g initial dose, or 1tsp per 1k gallon for maintenance. I didn't quite get the difference from initial and maintenance so I did 1tsp of this for 500g since my tank is over that amount I figure that would be fine. My friend is thinking what you mentioned, that the two chems combined I overdosed and depleted oxygen from the water to a fatal extent. Today the tank is very cloudy. I removed my Oscar and he seems to be doing okay in the 240. My friend mentioned I should remove any living fish still for at least 24 hrs.
I've been out of fish keeping for a long time and take this with a grain of salt but I never changed more than 25% of aquarium water and I always used the kitchen faucet that way I could monitor the temperature of water. The cloudy water makes me suspicious as we had that happen here in Jacksonville recently. When this happened I noticed cloudy water in the toilet and from the faucets but that also made the evening news here and we were told the water was perfectly safe to drink. I never believe the government on anything because they always lie to us. One more thing the drinking water is shocked from time to time which means extra chlorine is added to the water to kill bacteria so I always tested the city water before adding to my aquarium this may have been the case since you noticed cloudy water after the change. Still that is a very large turnover of water in your aquarium. I feel for the loss of your pets and I know how it hurts. Try to keep your head up and move forward.
I'll test the tap water later today.
So my recap so far.....
After speaking with my friend that owns a lfs I believe I overdosed with the two chems combined and removed a fatal amount of oxygen from the tank. He explained to me you don't need to use the fritz 360 during a wc, and suggested to always wait at least 24 hours between chems and informed me they do typically reside in the water for at least that long. I was unaware of this. It's possible the hose had something to do with it but seems much more unlikely. I went to breakfast and when I came back my gar was also dead. So per my friends advice, I moved my Oscar to the 240 and the tank is empty for now. My friend at least said while it's not what I wanna hear, these things do happen to us hobbyist and we learn from them. He encouraged me to start over, and I do believe with his help I'm going to. He's going to compile a few suggestions for stock, and is even going to help me with whatever I choose, at his cost w/o markups which is super generous of him.
I mentioned I want to at least get similar fish species for my CK, eel, pbass. He has a RCK currently 6-7", a fire eel about 7", and can get 24k spider kelberi. He also suggested he has a variety of flowerhorn he's successfully kept in communities with tanks as large as mine, has delhezi bichir, some vieja, black belt, and a variety of other fish. So I guess we'll figure this out and move on. I'm paranoid to use chems at all at this point. He also has a filtration system he says I need to come checkout at the new shop location he just opened. I'm not sure what it entails, but it removes chems from the equation, and conditions your tap water before it goes into the tank. It is dependent on what your actual tap water reads, but he said it's a system he's only invested about 300 dollars in, for his entire shop of thousands of gallons, so it's something he wants to show me for my setups.
Also, once I figure out a game plan for restocking, instead of growing everything out in the 240 with my giraffe nose cat, I'm going to keep my large Oscar in the 240, and grow everything out together in the larger tank. We believe this'll be a better grow out option for them, and the O will be perfectly content in the 240 by himself.
