I lost 17 fish today

[Jan Cavalieri]

I should add - this feels VERY slick to the touch. When you remove the filter - or a rock or anything - it is so slippery you can hardly hang on to it. When you rinse it with water or bleach water and scrub it - it just come off as brown liquid and a lot of it.


I still wonder if this just isn't food mold due to my continuing bad habit of over feeding. Can I fly somebody experienced down here to show me the proper quantities to feed. I do fine with my single beta at feeding him 4-6 small pellets a day as recommended on the label. But how do you estimate how much when you have fish from 8-10 inches to 1/4" inch? These Dojo's that I love so much can eat a huge amount of food. They love for me to throw pellets in their mouth and then they go around with their mouth open like a vacuum eating everything in front of them - sometimes the smaller fish won't eat until the Dojo's stop eating and by then there is no food left. BUT, what DoJo's do is eat a big mouthful of food and crunch down and about half of it comes out of the side of their mouth - nobody wants that food for some reason. So if I have any food left after feeding time it is usually due to the Dojo's eating style. These are really solid BIG fish. So I feed flakes, pellets and algae disks for all my algae eaters. Vegetables such as peas (that's all I've gotten anybody interested in) - and I cook frozen ones for 1 minute and then peel them. Those nearly all the fish like.

 

[Colin_T]

The brown stuff is either brown algae or Cyanobacteria (blue green algae), which can also be brown, black, pink, green or red. If it lifts off in a sheet of film and smells musty/ mouldy, it's blue green algae.

Have you tried using a smaller pellet for the big fish?
Then they could swallow the pellets whole and not as much would be wasted.

 

[Retired Viking]

Sorry about your fish

 

[itiwhetu]

Please elaborate to explain your reason for doing 90% water changes in a quarantine/ importing facility but not recommending the average home aquarist do it.

Why shouldn't the home aquarist do it if importers do it?

Very simply the importers have huge quantities of water on hand that the quality is controlled by them for their establishments. The home aquarist has limited ability to store or control the quality of their water.

 

[CassCats]

Stability is most important with water changes.

So if there's a massive difference between the tanks parameters and your tap parameters, that needs to be addressed very carefully regardless of how much water is changed at a time.

This is why this forum is very big on stocking your tanks with fish suited for your water type. Large water changes will not harm the fish if done correctly, meaning the parameters are the same. And stay consistent with water changes. If you do small water changes for a long time, nitrates will sneak up, and then a sudden large water change will shock the fish who have adapted to the large amount of toxins in the tank and this is where the problems occur.
This is also the same reason why many old schoolers are against large water changes--because they were originally educated to keep the water changes very small and even far apart, instead of large and frequent. A sudden large water change on a system not used to that regime will be affected negatively, and if one moves to higher water changes, they need to start gradually from the old regime.

So its not large water changes alone that are a problem--its the other mechanics behind them and the problems underlying that most people aren't going to consider before someone writes off large water changes as bad.

Given OP's parameters, a big change can be a problem for sure if they don't gradually change the parameters.

 

[itiwhetu]

Stability is most important with water changes.

So if there's a massive difference between the tanks parameters and your tap parameters, that needs to be addressed very carefully regardless of how much water is changed at a time.

This is why this forum is very big on stocking your tanks with fish suited for your water type. Large water changes will not harm the fish if done correctly, meaning the parameters are the same. And stay consistent with water changes. If you do small water changes for a long time, nitrates will sneak up, and then a sudden large water change will shock the fish who have adapted to the large amount of toxins in the tank and this is where the problems occur.
This is also the same reason why many old schoolers are against large water changes--because they were originally educated to keep the water changes very small and even far apart, instead of large and frequent. A sudden large water change on a system not used to that regime will be affected negatively, and if one moves to higher water changes, they need to start gradually from the old regime.

So its not large water changes alone that are a problem--its the other mechanics behind them and the problems underlying that most people aren't going to consider before someone writes off large water changes as bad.

Given OP's parameters, a big change can be a problem for sure if they don't gradually change the parameters.

I agree with all of that. The home aquarist still doesn't have control over their water supply which is the problem. And can not measure accurately everything associated with water changes, therefore a little often is better.

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

Here is a more realistic picture - this covers everything, including the inside of the filter so you have to clean the entire filter to make it filter well again - sometimes just cleaning the tube is enough but rarely

 

[itiwhetu]

Can you put up a photo of the whole tank, please

 

[Stan510]

You haven't shown the filter and stats,i.e. size of it,gph,media. I've advised people on you tube when they asked why the water was gray,to double the media they have. After they did that and it aged for a couple of weeks,the water cleared.
One downside to the hobby is ...fish die. It's why they lay eggs by the hundreds or thousands..a few times in their lives. Its also why you can watch all the nature vids of fish in the Amazon-Borneo..and its rare to spot an old fish. Especially aquarium sized fish in the 2-6" range. I have yet to spot an old Rainbow in Borneo with droopy tail and high hump.
Anyways,it's all in your filter and you should consider just doing a quantum leap in capacity. You can NEVER over filter an aquarium.

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

The filter currently being used by the two tank we have left (I just had 5 fish in the 3rd tank so we divided them up between the other two tank and shut it down). Fish do die, many die but not 17 at a time unless something went wrong. My best guess is that my assistant forgot to declorinate the water (I won't tell her that) - she's an amazing assistant and I've never seen her make a mistake before so I not going to tell her that she is likely at fault - but it makes sense other than not ALL the fish died only 17 - we had 5 or6 left I don't remember.

I could give you a picture of the tank(s) but it would be worthless - they have been completely overhauled with clean gravel - that's where the most horrific odor was coming from and there was a ton of this brown stuff underneath the gravel. So we cleaned and rinsed entire aquariums and redid the water change and all is well - I'm a little afraid we lost a lot of good bacteria in the process so I added a half a bottle each of Tetra Safe Start that has the added bacteria - that has worked well for us before. I did take readings both before and after the water/gravel change and all the pre-water change value were perfect except nitrites were at .25 on the Tank the fish died in. The after values were also perfect except now the nitrites were 1.0 have no idea why or how to lower them other than with more water changes. Also both had PH's of 7.8. I added 1 T. of the Neutralizer we use to a large bottle of tank water and stirred until the neutralizer was disolved - then carefully poured it into the tanks. Fish stayed out of the way. PH is now a perfect 7 like I prefer. 3 days post water change the tank where the fish died is starting to get a minor film on it and the water is cloudy.. The other/bigger tank is fine, just a tiny bit grungy.

I do have the right sized pellets because my DoJo's LOVE for me to drop them down their mouth, But when they eat them they'll eat 5 at a time and chew up with some leftovers falling out of their mouth. Like feeding a baby.

Finally before the disaster we had an AquaClear 70 on the big 50 gallon tank with no problems. On the tank where the fish died we had an AquaClear50 - also perfectly sized. After we shut down one tank I added it's filter (Aquaclear 70) to the 29 gallon tank - way oversized. I kept the top layer ceramic media in place of new media because I didn't want to lose ALL my bacteria. In time I'll add new media in with the old media for about a month then get rid of the old media.

I have 14 fish arriving for Tank B tomorrow. Most of the fish I lost were Rainbow fish so I bought some more. These will go into the big super clean tank with perfect water conditions - been waiting for FedEX all day to arrive from their overnight shipping. I REALLY need to get some returns back to Amazon but I can't leave the house until the fish arrive. Frustration they can just say "will be delivered by the end of the day" does that mean 5 pm, 8 pm, midnight? I don't know. I have a couple of Rainbow survivors there to greet them along with a couple of Dojos. This is the tank with zero nitrates and all other water parameters good for this fish,

 

[Fancy Tail Aquatics]

Ok, I read so much on the issue and may have missed a few things. I have been a Guppy breeder for very high-end fish for many years. Here is what stood out to me.

Our normal water change process is to remove the decorations, fake plants, sometimes live plants, and rinse/scrub off all those things.
The beneficial bacteria only live on surfaces, not in the water! You scrubbing everything killed off a lot of what you want. Never do that.

That's where the most horrific odor was coming from and there was a ton of this brown stuff underneath the gravel.
That is only mulm, it smells, but hurts the fish none, not one bit. Unsightly, but the fish don't care.

I'm a little afraid we lost a lot of good bacteria in the process so I added half a bottle each of Tetra Safe Start that has the added bacteria.
I am a dealer for DR.Tims, same type stuff and not sold on it. It will help Start the process but does not "instant start" the cycle. So, many people get this wrong! It speeds it up by a few weeks, but it not the end-all cure-all.

Brown Algae or Diatoms.
The cause is usually too little light or too much(you have to figure that out). I say about 8-10 hours is fine, not much more or less, but it depends on the lighting used as well.
It can lower the oxygen in the tank over time. Live plants can help a lot. Large water changes of 50% a week can definitely help! Adding Flourish Excel can also help, research it, and now my last point!

I just did a water change and everything died.
There are times, many municipalities flush the water systems out. They may add chemicals such as Chloramine when you only had Chlorine before! Maybe a lot of rains added to well water minerals it did not have before? This is why my water sits in a 33-gallon garbage can for 3-4 days before water changes, in case and only change a few tanks at a time, to see if anything happens.
I would highly suggest people use Seachem Prime as the best Water Conditioner of choice. Not only does it remove metals and both Chlorine versions, but it also can detoxify, in an emergency to buy you time for a few days. Again, not a fix-all, but a lifesaver in a tank crash.
My 2 cents...