Sudden Death Of All Tank Inhabitants...

[Athena]

Just been reading through your posts and I'm wondering whether, in your absence, could your fish have been accidentally overfed by your mom? With the tank already being overstocked, higher levels of uneaten food would have contributed to an ammonia surge.

I had a similar problem when I moved out of my house and my mother moved in (renting from me) and I couldn't take my fish until I had a new tank set up to move the fish over to. During the few weeks they were in mum's care, the water quality dropped and it developed a bacterial bloom.

I couldn't understand why as I had told her only one pinch of food a day. Anyway, when I asked her to show me exactly how much she had been feeding them I was SHOCKED!! Her idea of a pinch was enough to feed them for a week! Plus she admitted that sometimes she gave them "...a bit extra because they looked hungry"!!

I had never-ending water changes and gravel vacs to do in order to put things right again. Fortunately, I didn't lose any fish! But if I hadn't popped round there when I did I hate to think what would have happened a day or two later...

Regards

Athena

 

[Mammabe1]

That is a good point. Its always possible my heater was the straw that broke the whole thing down before it could be fixed. I think before we even begin setting up a new tank, we are going to look into the heater, and more than likely end up getting a new one. I would hate for anything like this to happen again because of a bum heater decided to play not-so-nice temperature games.

I kind of feel bad for the fish. If we had known better we wouldn't have started with them. I especially feel bad for the eel. He survived quite a lot of uneducated owner abuse, and just took it like a pro, and loved us anyways - he even would play through our fingers when we'd do water changes, and liked us petting him.

I guess we just know better for next time, and can be on the look out and be more prepared. My room seems so vacant without the tank there anymore.

Hello fellow newbie - I just wanted to say I am very sorry for your loss.. I can see from your words you were really fond of that eel and probably feel the most sad about him... The exact same thing happened to me and my tank of Goldie's. I had my tank established for 8 years - my oldest Goldie was 8 years old!!

Then I made the mistake of putting in one more Goldie and I think it was enough to be considered over populated (6 goldies in a 35 gallon) anyway, to make a long story short - I ended up losing all 6 and was very sad to lose the ones I had for years! especially my big goldie which was the first fish to go in the tankk and like you I felt so bad that I wasn't able to save them.... I have since learned from my mistakes and started over a new goldie tank with 4 goldies.

I felt sad reading your post so I just wanted to let you know, you are not alone...

Mammabe