I did everything wrong yesterday!

[SaltyMist]

Darn it, while I still feel Im a newbie, I've been involved in the aquarium hobby for years and years and years. And I made a big blunder yesterday.

I setup the 100 gallon tank thats been sitting in my garage for a couple years now, heated up the water with a heater to 78f, and had it circulating over night (had already put in substrate the day before as well as all the filters with new media).

So anyway, yesterday I went out and bought a package of bio spira to start the tank and one oscar fish, put the bio spira into the tank and let the bag with the oscar float around in the bag he came in for about 30 minutes or so, then started to acclimate him to the water in the tank slowly, he seemed fine.

After a while I released him into the tank, and he immediately went to the bottom corner of the tank and didnt move. I figured no big deal hes in a new tank, 20 minutes later I found him stuck to the intake of one of the canisters (not really stuck, since it's a very large grated intake, just kind of holding onto it I guess, or laying against it), so I turned off that filter and he swam down to the bottom of the tank again and stayed there, so I turned back on the filter. 20 minutes later he's kind of on his side and breathing rather hard, so at this point I become really stupid and net him out and put him in my goldfish tank and take out one of the goldfish from his tank and put him in the 100 gallon tank, feeling confident that the new 100 gallon just setup with bio spira (and bio spira hasnt let me down before) is just fine.

Before bed, all is well, the gold in the 100 is swimming around happily to be in such a large tank, and the oscar is swimming around with the other gold in the golds smaller tank.

So this morning, the gold in the 100 is still alive and doing well, so I transfer him back to his normal tank, assured that the water is fine in the 100 gallon tank, and take my tests of both tanks. the golds established tank is fine, 0/0/10-20 nitrates

Nothing is registering on the 100 gallon tank, which seems to make sence since it was started the day before with bio spira, and being 100 gallons with only a 1 inch goldfish in it overnight is not enough to make any readings yet.

So since the Oscar is doing well in the gold tank I net him out and put him back in the 100 gallon tank, knowing that the water is fine (afterall, the goldfish was fine all night long, the tanks have the same temp and both have no amonia or nitrites), while Im taking my shower for 20 minutes I come back out to check on it, and hes floating diagonally at the bottom of the tank again. barely breathing and looks like he'll die in a matter of minutes.

By that point I was already going to be late for work, so I can't do anything else at this point and leave the house.

I suspect that the Oscar (which is tiny - maybe 1" long) will be doa when I return home tonight.

So, let this be a lesson to others, while I find that it usually is acceptible to move tanks inhabitants when needed between tanks when the tanks have the same temp and paramaters, it was totally irresponsible of me to put the goldfish (which thankfully is doing just fine when I left the house this morning) into the 100 gallon test as a "test" so to speak, and was also irresponsible of me to add the Oscar to the goldfish tank to try to see if it was the fish or something in the tank (though only water was used to just rinse out the big tank, and drained and filled and dechlorinated and bio spira was used in it).

In any event, dont make the same mistake I did and move fish around like that. I should have known better and I did, but was being stupid and not considering the fishies lives which is deplorable on my part.

Okay, Im ready for my public flogging now.

 

[cutechic]

I'm sorry about what happened, and hope your oscar is ok. We all make mistakes, don't knock yourself up over it. to the forum, btw

 

[animallover]

I'm osrry about the loss of your fish, I lost one of mine as well.

 

[Cheese Specialist]

Hey and to the site!

Sorry to hear what happened

 

[SaltyMist]

Thanks for the sympathies, but I may have been too hasty, he's still kicking it, and looking like he might actually pull through (just got home 20 minutes ago), though I will be amazed. He's still in the corner of the tank, but hes acting like he's trying to suck food out of the gravel on the bottom, and kind of standing on his head while doing it. Looks better then when I left and he was on a diagnal slope against the side of the tank.

I think that it's a positive thing that he's still alive at all, and no longer slow breathing like he was dying, but breathing normal, just not doing much swimming around right now.

It was still a bad thing that I did and I WONT repeat it, but it will be a good thing if Oscar survives this ordeal (You know the old saying, that which doesnt kill us only makes us stronger, well I hope thats true for fishies too. It amazes me that I can learn so much by doing this hobby over the years, but still make stupid choices at times.

 

[cutechic]

Have you posted in the emergency forum? Maybe someone there could suggest what to do for him.

 

[SaltyMist]

I dont believe anything else needs to be done for him. I know he'd probably like it better in the goldfish tank, but I dont think that the stress that would be put on him to move him to the goldfish tank would be worth the move for him. I think he just needs to acclimate to his surroundings now and just take it easy for a while till he feels comfortable and healthy.

Theoretically, the Bio Spira does an instant cycle for the tank, and has always worked in the past and is getting a really good reputation as it's being used. Still, I checked the amonia, and nitrites and both are still at 0 which would indicate that the bacteria in the bio spira is doing it's job, it seems like it may have been more of a shock issue than anything else.

I did have a problem with the heater, when he was introduced into the tank, it was 78f, but within 2 hours it rose up to 80f (which is what my Goldfish tank is kept at because of heat fluctuations in the living room it's better to just keep it a little on the highside), but then for some reason the heater in my goldie tank decided to not heat up the tank properly during hte night and we had a cold night (forgot to close the darn windows last night - *see, I said I did everything wrong yesterday*), so the tank dropped down to about 76f overnight, by which point the 100 gallon had also dropped for some reason (maybe I didnt acclimate the heater long enough to the tank and it's readings are off), so I bumped up the heater a notch in the larger tank this morning after putting the Oscar in it, and when I got home it's now stabalized between 80 and 82f (more towards the 80f side though).

So I think with all the water temp fluctuations, it's a miracle anything is still alive in those two tanks.

But on a positive note, my 20 gallon puffer tank is stable, looks great but skimming it's head off because I just added a raw shrimp to feed the kids in it, and need to go empty the skimmers cup in the next 10 minutes to prevent overflow. And the clowns tank is also stable, but it was pumping air into the tank all night long because I changed out the sponge for polyfilter material because the LFS said it would catch more debris, and apparently it does, because the sump got lower than normal so the added powerhead started to suck air and pump tiny bubbles into the tank all night long, so I unplugged the added powerhead in the clowns tank because it will pull too much water through the system that the polyfilter doesnt allow to go through even after only being in the system for 1 day.

Wow, so many tragedys yesterday but as soon as the Oscar is acting normal and swimming around more, then it will I guess be adverted tragedies.

Thanks,

 

[cutechic]

You're right, he's probably just stressed.

I've heard many people say that Bio Spira is not really an instant cycler. A lot of people use it while fishless cycling to speed up the process but do not actually fully rely on it. But, if it works for you

Have you checked the pH and hardness of the 100 gallon? If these are quite different from the golfish tank it may have contributed to the shock of your oscar.

Don't worry about the heat flucuations too much. Even though it dropped 4 degrees overnight, it probably dropped gradually and didn't put too much stress on your oscar.

You said you kept your goldfish tank at 80 degrees. How are they doing at this temperature? I've found that mine did best at around 70 degrees because they're coldwater fish.

Anyway, GL and HTH

 

[SaltyMist]

Hi and thanks for the advise. Im not finding any detriment to the goldfish at 80f, though I would prefer it at 74 to 76, but it's just not plausible to keep the air conditioner on all day, but it might be a necessity come dead summer here in So. California, right now they have only been in the tank a bit over a month and are showing no signs of slowing down, they eat voraciously, they could probably outeat my puffers if I gave them the chance (but I dont), and are probably the most active of all my fish other than my clown fish in the other tank who is always swimming around looking to protect his little area of his reef.

I was told and read on forums that it would be better to keep the water between 78 and 80 in the goldies tank if need be rather than to let it cool overnight (or on weekend when we are home all day with the air conditioning on) or fluctuate between 70 and 80 during the hotter days.

So far it seems that 80 is a good temp that stays pretty stable (unless the heater stops working), day and night (other than last night for some unknown reason * but heater is now replaced just to be sure*, first time an ebo jaeger heater has nto done it's job properly.

 

[AquaCan]

Way back when I troo bought an oscar he did the same sort of deal in my 55g tank... I wasnt quiet sure what to do and after a few days he perked up a bit but only hid from me... someone suggested addin a few more oscars so i did so and immediately he was no longer shy along with the four other oscars.
at the time they were small and got along well but soon enough they grew real fast and had to give one away and returned three to a lfs as a result of aggression to one another
just a suggestion, not sure if its up your alley tho

 

[cutechic]

A stable temperature is better than flucuating temperatures. I'm glad the goldies are happy

Getting a couple more oscars may be a good idea. You said your oscar is only an inch, right? Since the tank is so big you could probably add a couple more *small* ones. They shouldn't put too much strain on the bioload, even if the tank hasn't cycled fully.

 

[SaltyMist]

Well I found the problem yesterday afternoon (late), I got the fish to move closer to where I could see him better and saw a white patch on one of his sides, so I netted him into one of the LFS bags with water and went down to my LFS to have them take a look.

He said, it's diseased, ended up refunding my money, and apologizing profusely, we then looked at the 3 other little O's in the tank that he came out of, and sure enough all 3 of them had this white patch of skin on their sides that I didnt notice when I bought the little guy, in varrying degrees. One of them the patch is the size of a ballpoint pen tip, another one has it more like a No. 2 eraser, and still the other one is slightly more large. It's really hard to describe it, it's like torn skin where the edges have gone white (definately not Ich, I know exactly what that looks like).

He told me to tear down my tank, and disinfect it with water/bleach solution before adding anymore inhabitants, and gave me the last package of biospira for free, since he realized that I had bought one and after cleaning the tank it will have to be re-established again.

I told him to call me when he id's the disease specifically, and what can be used to combat it since I did that stupid maneuver of putting the O into my goldie tank that time, so just in case Im watching my goldies now for any sign of it, hopefully they wont show any signs of whatever this is/was, but Im still awaiting the call from the LFS.


Maybe a MOD could move this topic over to the fish disease at this point since it seems to be heading more in that direction then what I had initially intended it to be, that of informing what NOT to do when putting a tank together.

Thanks,

 

[cutechic]

Wow, nice guy at the lfs. I've spent $30 medicating my panda cory that I bought from them (it had fin rot when I bought it), and when I went to buy the medicine, the guy at my lfs didn't even say, "sorry for your trouble," or "that's too bad" or anything.

Good luck with redoing your tank and I hope your goldie doesn't get sick. *fingers crossed*

 

[guppygirl]

 

[Inchworm]

Hi SaltyMist

Welcome to the forum