Heater Malfunction 9 Fish Dead One Left. Please Help Me Save The One L

[crunch7]

The heater broke at night and temperature reads 35 degree. Last remaining is my oldest red zebra cichlid. He is down on the ground at one place and breathing heavily and slight movement in fins. Will he make it . I have already done a 90 percent water change. My 2 year old cichlid community. Shocked angry and sad like nuts. I had auloncaras , peacocks, electric blue alll dead. I hope my zebra makes it. He is the oldest fish. Please help and let me know if I can help him recover faster.

 

[DrRob]

Warm water doesn't hold as much oxygen as cooler water, so the oxgen levels will have been low. If you've cooled the water and he's still with you after the temperature changes then keep a close eye on him, and on the filter. I've not got a whole lot of experience of filter bacteria at 35C, it's not generally something we like to encounter, but I would expect that they'll be fine, but you might see a glitch in the bacteria activity, and you might see some plant die back to compound that, so some good water changes over the next few days would be a good move, and remove any dieing stuff such as leaves.
 
For what it's worth, the silver lining is that he's not got to compete with any other fish who might pick at him as he recovers and he isn't sharing the filter capacity with anything else, but it doesn't make it feel any better overall.
 
Sorry for your loss.

 

[Akasha72]

nothing much to add to what Rob said other than to add an airstone if you have one which will increase the oxygen for a short time while he recovers.
 
I did the opposite to you just this week. After doing a water change and filter clean I forgot to plug my heater back in. It was only when I put my hand in the tank to pick out a leaf that was floating around that I realised it felt very cold. The temp was down to 22 degrees which for my angelfish is very cold. Thankfully I didn't lose any fish though.
 
Sorry for you loss 

 

[cynic]

Must be the season for it. I noticed my RTS had greyed out for no obvious reason yesterday untill i saw the temp of 18 deg...

Luckily have 2 heaters in the tank so turned up the emergency heater and he is black again today.