# Tank disaster



## DJBLeeK (Sep 14, 2012)

My 29G tank is empty now. On Monday I noticed my two clown loaches had cloudy eyes. So immediately began treating with recommended doses of tetracycline. A couple days on I see the glass catfish looks fuzzy and acting odd. I'm doing more water changes and dosing with meds. A day later the catfish, angelfish, loach, gourami and pleco are dead. I set up a hospital tank and put everything else in it. Rainbow shark, 3 mollies, and my little skunk loach. 1 mollie and shark dead this morning. 
A krib that was in the tank about a month ago but moved to my 40 gallon cichlid tank died yesterday.
I'm panicked about the cichlid tank now. Went to my fish store for advice. Owner said the SAME THING has been happening in his tanks. He'll come in and find some tanks with half the fish dead and many tanks needing treatment. Same cloudy eye and fungus. 
He said the tap water is going through a particular , occasional cycle where this can happen. REALLY? 
Of course I'm livid. I go buy some demineralized water (curiously every store was out of distilled) and do a 25% water change in the 40G cichlid tank & 1/3 change in the 5g hospital tank. Yes, I condition the water.
And yes, I checked the parameters and and both tanks were spot on near perfect before all this. 
So.... What the heck is happening, and what further steps should I take to make sure my cichlids don't follow the same porcelain path?
And now I'm sick too, so I guess I won't be around much longer. 

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## Elle (Oct 25, 2010)

> And now I'm sick too, so I guess I won't be around much longer.


I know this is wrong of me, but this cracked me up.

What meds were you using? One thing I've tried sometimes with success is a salt dip, but some diseases are just nasty and don't respond to anything. I lost my fave red cap oranda the other day and none of the meds I tried worked.


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## swordtail (Apr 24, 2010)

You mention treating your tank with tetracycline. This med has a reputation of killing off all the beneficial bacteria, causing a spike in ammonia and nitrite. This could be what killed your fish. This med should only be used in a hospital tank. It would be a good idea to recheck your ammonia and nitrite values before adding any new fish.


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## DJBLeeK (Sep 14, 2012)

Swordtail, it sounds like you may be right about that. I'd say I'm a novice but passionate fish keeper and need to learn a big buttload more. 
There's still the issue of whether the infection got to my 40g cichlid tank. All cichlids look healthy and happy so far and I'm treating them a bit for precaution.
I've dissembled the 29g (hexagon) tank and hank scrubbed EVERYTHING twice with hot water with baking soda and vinegar. Things are now drying in the sun. Or they were awhile ago. 
Had that tank running for about 4 years and deeply loved those fish. Probably more than healthy, considering the devastation I felt. 
I guess nobody else has had this tap water issue? 
What would you recommend? I'm a bit paranoid about the water thing because of the LFS guy. And everything I read says tap water has the necessary minerals but I just have to add that conditioner. I bought some Prime and I think my old conditioner is out of date.


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## Elle (Oct 25, 2010)

You can try testing your water straight out of the tap to see what you're getting. The Lower Mainland has major soft water issues, which are fairly unique. I treat with Prime, alkaline buffer to raise PH, and also with Equilibrium to add trace minerals, but that doesn't sound like it was your issue.

We're in North Van near Cap road, so really close to the source of the Capilano reservoir. One of the issues we have is that our water is extremely soft right out of the tap - like PH of 5.0 - which has caused a lot of problems for fish like guppies that like hard water. I know somebody in Burnaby had problems when the city was doing water pipeline maintenance near their place which affected the water supply, so you might also check with the city to see if they have been doing any work on the mains near you.

Sorry for your loss. I know it really sucks to lose fish you've had for a while - I'd had the goldfish I lost for 3 years.


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## swordtail (Apr 24, 2010)

I would follow Elles advice re: additives. Also you could take a look a Rastapus's sticky on Vancouver's water and his suggestions for adjusting water parameters.


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## DJBLeeK (Sep 14, 2012)

I'm going to King Ed's today to test water and get items for water hardening. Cichlid tank is looking good and I want to maintain that. Apparently I may have to rehome my jewel cichlids as I was lead to believe they would be good with my other Africans.


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## Foxtail (Mar 14, 2012)

Your jewels should be fine.. I know other people keep then together and they are fine... 

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## aquafunlover (Jul 8, 2012)

DJB,

Glad to see your Cichlid tank thriving! I think your in the clear there. 

You mentioned your water conditioner may have been close to expiry. Just from experience, if it was expired and you didn't notice or it didn't last until the expiry date, the chlorine could have killed your beneficial bacteria. Then follows the ammonia spike, which kills the fish along with the trace amounts of chlorine. I'd say due to your stocking level and the surface area of the tank (which limits oxygen exchange a bit), that this could have easily been the issue.

Where there any recent additions of decor or fish to the hexagon tank? If not I would vote for the old de-chlorinator as the culprit.

Since it was such an established tank it is a real mystery. Sorry for your loss, but please keep us updated on the status of the new tenants when you decide to re-stock. 

I would suggest using feeders to cycle the tank and see if it has been "cured":

1) Use feeders (from a cost perspective in case it remains a "killer tank")
2) Get them from someone on the forum who has had them for a while (often times feeders at stores are sick and/or unhealthy to begin with so it's hard to tell if you fixed tour problem or not in the case that they do die.

I, for one quarantine my feeders in my crayfish tank or in my mini pond outside. I have a couple that I've had in there for about 2 months I can give you. I just didn't feel like feeding them and haven't had anything in or out of the tank for months.

If you'd like I can bring them by next weekend and they could be your "guinea pigs". Just don't want to see you loose any more fish to that tank and I owe you for the Venustus (loves his new home BTW). Had to move the bumble bee out because he was picking on him right off the bat. LoL

Must be his karma paying him back.


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## DJBLeeK (Sep 14, 2012)

Thanks. The are a couple of tetras in the hexagon right now. I'm trying to remain detached. There still are two mollies upstairs in a five gallon hospital tank that seem to be the dual survivors. They were born in our old 10g. They'll go back in the hexagon eventually since they seem to be in the clear.
I'm glad the Venustus is happy enough. It's always hard to turn my back on a fish.


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## DJBLeeK (Sep 14, 2012)

Yes, there was a new addition to the tank that died suspiciously quickly the next weekend we went away for 4 days. 
I really believe that's the source. What's confusing is when I went to LFS (the one you were going to after you left), he said he was having trouble with the h2o and that was the problem. So I've been a bit paranoid about the water. But nobody on the forum seems to have had similar issues around the same time so I'm going with the new fish theory.


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## shady280 (Oct 17, 2011)

I too have lost a large amount of fish lately in my 5 year established tank. First was 5 juvi discus to gas bubbles and now 4 cories and a few tetras and my beloved new juvi German ram. All my parameters are in spec as well. It's really bothering me


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## DJBLeeK (Sep 14, 2012)

Interesting. Where are you located?


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## shady280 (Oct 17, 2011)

Mission. My other 2 tanks a fluval edge and a 30 hex have been absolutely solid still. I removed the decos in the 55 and stirred the gravel and did a 30% wc then serviced the filter. A fluval 305. All my water parameters checked out ok as well before and after the change. The filter was at its monthly interval for servicing too so I really don't know what went wrong


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## DJBLeeK (Sep 14, 2012)

Some of these things I think are latent parasites that hit eventually. I mean, who knows?


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## waterbox (Nov 26, 2011)

*A Tip on Disinfecting*

@DJBLeeK:



DJBLeeK said:


> I've dissembled the 29g (hexagon) tank and hank scrubbed EVERYTHING twice with hot water with baking soda and vinegar. Things are now drying in the sun. Or they were awhile ago.


Just a note, DJ: I hope you are not attempting to disinfect your tank (or anything for that matter) using vinegar and baking soda _at the same time_. One is a strong acid, and the other a strong base. Mixing them will just produce a pH neutral solution, and you won't be disinfecting anything. Using one after the other (rinsing between) would work well, however.

Anyway, the hot water and the UV radiation from the sun probably killed anything in there.


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## sunshine_1965 (Aug 16, 2011)

DJBLeeK said:


> And now I'm sick too, so I guess I won't be around much longer.
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD


Hope you feel better now and survived. I read this and laughed real hard. Sad about the fish though.


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## Fish rookie (May 21, 2012)

Sorry for your lost. 
You could perhaps just keep your water clean with water changes instead of using medication and see what happens...as I know sometimes those medication can stress out your fish and kill the ones who would have been fine otherwise.
The test that you do with test kit are just part of it, there may be things in your water that is affecting your fish that you cannot test with your test kit. 
If you want to make sure perhaps you can use RO/DI water than remineralize it to make sure your water is clean. I sonehow do not think it was an infection, perhaps water issue...but of course I could eb wrong.
To disinfect a tank I was told to use bleach and then rinse and just let it evaporate.


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## IceBlue (Mar 17, 2011)

DJBLeeK said:


> Some of these things I think are latent parasites that hit eventually. I mean, who knows?


I don't know if the buyer or the LFS can check this but I believe the same thing. Sure some disease may be lurking in the tank and comes out when the fish weaken but I also believe we sometimesn buy dead fish swimming. I guess you would have to be able to check out the wholesalers operation tofind out if parasites are in the fish.??


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## DJBLeeK (Sep 14, 2012)

Thanks Sunshine. I often use dark humour to get me through difficult times. I'm doing well.


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## Morainy (Apr 21, 2010)

How are your tanks now, DJBLeek?


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## DJBLeeK (Sep 14, 2012)

Oh, hi. Everything seems okay right now. Changed my methods a bit. More frequent water changes and testing.


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