Please Help, No Idea Where To Start

A mate of mine is on school holidays with his kids. His wife just texted this to me:



I've advised an immediate water change and am on my way over. Any ideas? Tank is usually lovingly maintained and went through a full clean including filter early this week.

Not sure of its current occupants apart from Mouth Almighty, some sort of Australian native trigger fish, a bullrout and a turtle.

I'll be in a position to advise further in about an hour but any advice is appreciated.

omg! I've never seen anything like it! Looks like a bacterial bloom on steriods! Water changes for sure and a good gravel vac too. When you say it's lovingly maintained and had a full clean this week - is it possible it's been over cleaned to the point of stripping it of all beneficial bacteria? It's all I can think of to be honest
 
Hope you can get it sorted 

Well, I think I'm a few days late. Those fish not actually deceased have been moved, sadly all Mouth Almighties are gone.

House was empty for a week and this was the sight when Mrs Friend came home.

All I can do now is recommend a complete cleanout when Mr Friend gets home next week.

Ammonia is .25ppm as is nitrite, after several water changes. Suggests a massive loss of bacteria at some point.

Just one of those things, glad it wasn't my tank.
In the last hour since water change, ammonia has gone from .25 to unreadably green. I think it's a dead tank

sounds (and looks) like it's been over cleaned. Sometimes we think we're doing the right thing by cleaning but we're actually doing the wrong thing and this is when things like this can happen. There's often a fine line between maintaining and over cleaning - I've been there myself, I think we all have, but we live and learn.
 
Hopefully you can get them back on track. Good luck with it - sorry I can't be of more help

Was this a cycled tank or not?
 
If was a established tank, then the full clean, including the filter is probably the main suspect in this.
 
Means this is probably a bacterial bloom and cycling is starting again due to the loss of a lot of the beneficial bacteria.

It was cycled, this is the friend I forced to go through a fish less cycle against his wishes.

I reckon you're right, I think he may have cleaned his filter a little too enthusiastically before going on holidays.

Ah well, I had a disaster myself one holiday. These things happen I guess.

Mystery solved. Fins and claws don't mix.

My mate added a couple of freshwater crayfish in his desire to create a "natural" creek environment. One of them captured a Mouth Almighty, about 6" long, and dragged it under a log for safe keeping. Which explains the massive ammonia spike and bacterial bloom.

It probably would have happened even if he was home.

Wow! :O

That explains a lot for sure.

And yup, claws and fins don't generally work out well.

At least you found out the cause, good job.