My Worst Nightmare- How do I recover this?

[primsloaches16]

Hey yall. If any of yall are in central texas I'm sure you're aware of the record breaking cold snowstorm weve been having. My power has been out for 2 days, and I had to leave my fish tanks behind when I went to stay with a relative. (Wrapped the tanks before we left) When we came back this afternoon.... nearly 75% of all of my fish died. I stuck my hands in the freezing water and was able to recover around 30 fish who were barely hanging on, my near catatonic pet geckos and we drove back to my relatives. I now have the 30 fish in an emergency 10 gal with a heater and air stone. (They are luckily all very lively and active) I know I could have done a lot of things differently and it breaks my heart how many I lost. My power should be back up by tomorrow afternoon. I had to just leave all the dead fish in the tank..... how in the hell do I prep those tanks again for the fish? 100% water change plus a ton of beneficial bacteria, gravel vac and dispose of the bodies? I was sobbing when I saw them earlier and am terrified for having to clean it all up. Any tips or support would mean so much. Luckily the ones that survived I was the most close with. Prim is a-ok.

 

[Lajos_Detari]

So sorry to hear about your loss of fish.

1)Firstly, quickly remove all dead fish and change the water 100%.
2)Rinse your filters with water treated with anti-Chlorine/Chloramine.
Don't overclean your filters. Just a quick rinse, else you may lose much BB.
3)I don't think you want to gravel clean too much as some BB stays on the gravel.

I guess in cold temperature, the beneficial bacteria(BB) won't die.
The BB might just stopped their activities only instead of dying even in very cold temperature.

4)Heat up your tank and put the fish back into your main/big tank as soon as possible.
Stop feeding them temporarily if you are putting them in your 10 gallon emergency tank.

5)After you put them back into your main tank, don't feed them too much temporarily.
Feed once every 2-3 days in case you lost much beneficial bacteria.

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[Circus]

What you put down should be good. Along with daily testing for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. If any of the first two you will want to do a water change. I am very sorry for your loss.

 

[Fishiemang]

Scoop out the dead fish amd dispose of them.

I probably wouldn't do 100% water change. Leave some of that water in there, but do not add fish right away. Maybe 75% change. Check levels. You want to leave some food in there for the bacteria that more than likely is still in there, either dormant or still active (remember...they dig up bacteria frozen in ice that are from thousands of years ago and when thawed they come back to life) to feed on. Then add the fish back a few at a time, once the ammonia spike is dealt with. The BB colony is probably ok. Some will have died off from lack of oxygen I'm sure, and that is probably what got the fish you lost. The water temp was prolly not so low after 2 days to be the sole cause. May have felt freezing, but maybe 60 degrees give or take.

With luck, you'll be back up and running in a very short time.

 

[primsloaches16]

Scoop out the dead fish amd dispose of them.

I probably wouldn't do 100% water change. Leave some of that water in there, but do not add fish right away. Maybe 75% change. Check levels. You want to leave some food in there for the bacteria that more than likely is still in there, either dormant or still active (remember...they dig up bacteria frozen in ice that are from thousands of years ago and when thawed they come back to life) to feed on. Then add the fish back a few at a time, once the ammonia spike is dealt with. The BB colony is probably ok. Some will have died off from lack of oxygen I'm sure, and that is probably what got the fish you lost. The water temp was prolly not so low after 2 days to be the sole cause. May have felt freezing, but maybe 60 degrees give or take.

With luck, you'll be back up and running in a very short time.

Thank all of yall for your responses. The 65 was at 40 degrees, my 20 gal was at 35 and my girlfriends 5 gallon was at 33. All of the fish were near catatonic other than my dojos. (Poor kuhlis were swimming upside down) I currently cant go home since there is no power or water, so I have to wait and do that once my powers back on. I haven't fed them in the 10gal and probably wont until they're back in the big tank.

 

[Slaphppy7]

Sorry for the devastating losses, good advice above....this weather is unprecedented for all of us Texans.

 

[Fishiemang]

Holy....yea. That's cold. Lets hope that with that kind of.cooling wrapped that you also don't run into frozen plumbing as well. If the air in the house got cold enough to do that....wow.

 

[Caden Fisher]

Sorry for the loss. That’s terrible and so unexpected