Tank crash - advice please! Also, sorry for my absence! I'm back :-)

[Trop65]

Have we checked.for.ammonia?

I have tanks that ain't had a "water change" in years. My 38 gallon bowfront for almost 3 now. It is also overstocked with livebearers crappin out kiddos. I use a Marineland Penguin 200 for a filter. Ain't cleaned the sponge for a while now. When fish disappear, I simply let nature do what it do. The snails go to town on the carcasses. I feed this tank maybe once every second or third day too...depending on my memory. This is my "show" tank in my living room. Heavily planted as well. No major die off in there. I know at one point there musta been high ammonia, because I noticed some red gill action for a few days, but that cleared itself up.

I doubt the neglect you feel you committed contributed to the issue. There was a combination of things that have got ya.

First: Stop feeding the tank. They will be fine for a while.

Next, you can do several small water changes every few hours, which will allow the fish to slowly acclimate to the new conditions, to avoid shocking them. I've done that before to try saving a tank. It worked. Several 15% or so changes every 3 hours give or take and get that water changed over.

Get that filter running to get that water churning. Your issue may very well be low oxygenation due to the filter being down. Especially if the fish are swimming towards the surface.

 

[Trop65]

I totally understand not finding the energy to do a weekly water change.
I was sick all of January and was desperately trying to find the energy to maintain my tank. What I did was sit and closely watch my fish. They are very calming and I knew they are dependent on me as much as my cats and dog were at the time. I somehow made myself do a 75% water change one week and a 50% the next couple of weeks. As you feel better it becomes easier. Just get a systematic routine of your water changes. Have everything ready in its place. ( I use a Python. )Before you know it, you will be on your way and you will feel so much better and your maintenance becomes not a chore but a cathartic experience.
Good luck to you, we all care!

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Than you kindly! A routine definitely helps!

Tank update: Have kept up with water changes and we're now up to large water changes, and nitrates between 10-20ppm.

I pulled nearly 40 young platies and mollies that are now in the grow out tank, and will be taking them to the LFS tomorrow. I also took some of the adult livebearers, so that will reduce the amount of fry being produced in that tank.

The stocking is so much better now! There's still a large number of fry and sub adults that are still too small to go to the store, but will be more dedicated to removing batches to the grow out tank to grow them on quicker and take them to the store.

Had another mini crisis when the filter pump for the hood filter stopped working. I'd been working on the tank and had stirred up a lot of dead plant matter, so the next day I removed the filter to give it another swish around in old tank water and remove those nitrate producing organics. Reattached pump, no water coming out... nothing I tried got it working again...

Talked to dad about it since it was his tank and equipment, turns out we can neither repair nor replace it. Old tank that is no longer sold, old filters that aren't sold anymore, and more than 20 year old pump that is still sold, but wasn't actually designed to work with this tank. The pump is a Juwel, the tank Den Marketing or something. He'd bodged it to fit with random pipes and screwed it on.

So I took the media from that overhead, hood filter, and added it to a hob and an internal filter, one on each side of the tank. Along with removing almost 40 fish, seems to be okay so far (touch wood). Still keeping a close eye on it and improving the maintenance routine.

He's decided to give me this tank, and I kinda wish he hadn't! LOL. It's a good size, but it is old and ugly.

This is an old photo, many of the fish and plants are different now, and I've since added a sand beach at the front right for the cories, plus a coconut hut.

I did a stock take, there are a bunch of elderly, soft water schooling fish that are the remains of schools he had that I'm allowing to stay and die off in this tank rather than try to re-home elderly fish into schools that may not accept them, and putting them through all that stress.

So reducing stock in all the tanks, and the long term plan is to fix up and move this tank, and I'll keep one of the 15 gallons for the shrimp, pygmy cories and otos (the oto/pygmy tank is softer water, my tap water for these ones and guppies is hard) plus this one. I'll sell one of the 15 gallons and the 12 gallon grow out once fry numbers are reduced. I might still stash the 12 gallon as a quarantine tank, or I'll organise a tote that I can store and set up as needed - haven't decided yet. So it'll be two tanks to maintain instead of the current four. Plus since this disaster, dad can no longer grumble at me about water changes! He's seen the disaster without them and when he turned the filter off, and how I was able to stop the deaths by doing water changes. However he doesn't really get the nitrogen cycle or the importance of keeping the media wet and running water through it/keeping the bacteria alive, no mater how I explain it. Doubt he'll ever listen to me enough to truly understand it! But if he leaves the filters alone, that's all I ask!

 

[Naughts]

I think the fact that he gave you the tank shows that he has now realised that you know what you're doing.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I think the fact that he gave you the tank shows that he has now realised that you know what you're doing.

LOL thanks! It's more that he's lost interest in the fish, and he wants that space back to put some birds there instead. Plus I was looking for a 30-40 gallon tank to replace my two 15 gallon ones, so he said I should have this one instead.

But he did accept the water changes and things I was doing to save the tank when fish started dying, so perhaps he is accepting that I know what I'm doing. He made some suggestions like removing the filter altogether, and just replacing the broken filter with an airstone, not really getting that it would be the lack of BB that would be the problem, not the oxygen, but he didn't try to take over and insist on doing it his way, so you might be right.

I'll see what I can do with it. Once the stock is reduced enough, I'll have to spread the remaining fish out among my three tanks to tear this one down, scrape all that ugly green paint off the back and sides, and remove that ugly white strip he siliconed to the front below the trim. That will improve the look a lot. The silicone seals still feel good at least, not dry, cracked or brittle.

He suggested that I could paint the stand and the hood - anyone had any experience doing that? I'm a bit leery about it. I suppose an acrylic or silk paint on the stand might be water resistant, but I would be wary about painting the hood.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Hmm, maybe I could have a perspex or glass cover made, and get rid of the hood altogether... Now that the filters in the hood are kaput, it's not needed anymore

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Update on this tank, things aren't good. Have lost the majority of the fish since this happened, I don't know why, since the water test results have been good for a while, and repeated large water changes didn't seem to help. I wonder if while most of them were lost because of that initial unplugging of the filter and ammonia spike, if some were weakened by that and just died over the next weeks from that, or whether the stress of that led to some bacterial outbreak maybe. But I've lost loads of the young fish especially.

Stock left in that 57 gallon now is four corydora aeneus (I'm so glad we haven't lost any of those *yet, touch wood* since I'm more attached to them), two cardinals, one neon, three glowlight tetra, and a few platy youngsters who still look stressed, despite water testing perfectly.

Perhaps contamination, but I have no idea what could have contaminated it. No sprays get used in that room, since there are parrots in there too, and I'm religious about thorough hand-washing before and after touching tanks.

I have one female black molly left, that I'd moved to one of my tanks (the other male I moved died the next morning). Hoping she's gravid so I don't lose that line entirely, since the orginal, elderly trio died off before this tank wipeout happened. Or, hoping the store might have a couple of the black mollies I'd bought in to them left. Will check next time I go. I have some blue platy young in one of my tanks, and the cories I have were going to go into the 57, but I won't move anything over there until I'm sure this has been resolved.

I had wanted to gradually reduce the population in this tank, but not this way

 

[mbsqw1d]

Update on this tank, things aren't good. Have lost the majority of the fish since this happened, I don't know why, since the water test results have been good for a while, and repeated large water changes didn't seem to help. I wonder if while most of them were lost because of that initial unplugging of the filter and ammonia spike, if some were weakened by that and just died over the next weeks from that, or whether the stress of that led to some bacterial outbreak maybe. But I've lost loads of the young fish especially.

Stock left in that 57 gallon now is four corydora aeneus (I'm so glad we haven't lost any of those *yet, touch wood* since I'm more attached to them), two cardinals, one neon, three glowlight tetra, and a few platy youngsters who still look stressed, despite water testing perfectly.

Perhaps contamination, but I have no idea what could have contaminated it. No sprays get used in that room, since there are parrots in there too, and I'm religious about thorough hand-washing before and after touching tanks.

I have one female black molly left, that I'd moved to one of my tanks (the other male I moved died the next morning). Hoping she's gravid so I don't lose that line entirely, since the orginal, elderly trio died off before this tank wipeout happened. Or, hoping the store might have a couple of the black mollies I'd bought in to them left. Will check next time I go. I have some blue platy young in one of my tanks, and the cories I have were going to go into the 57, but I won't move anything over there until I'm sure this has been resolved.

I had wanted to gradually reduce the population in this tank, but not this way

I wonder if you and others such as Clownlurch are suffering from elevated levels of chlorine/chloramine in the water?
Throughout lockdown, the supply around your home network will be under more demand. The less time it takes for water to arrive at your tap from the supplier, the more chlorine/chloramine will be in the water as it hasn't had as long to stand and dissipate.
Also, given the chance of burst water mains, theres more chance of suppliers having to add more in order to unsure the supply is clean.
Dunno, just a thought? Maybe we all need to consider doubling up our prime dosage on wc's

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I wonder if you and others such as Clownlurch are suffering from elevated levels of chlorine/chloramine in the water?
Throughout lockdown, the supply around your home network will be under more demand. The less time it takes for water to arrive at your tap from the supplier, the more chlorine/chloramine will be in the water as it hasn't had as long to stand and dissipate.
Also, given the chance of burst water mains, theres more chance of suppliers having to add more in order to unsure the supply is clean.
Dunno, just a thought? Maybe we all need to consider doubling up our prime dosage on wc's

Possibly! Although I haven't had problems in my other tanks apart from that cory that got that weird bump. I think I have some test strips knocking about somewhere, from before I got my API test kit, and those old ones test chlorine. Will see if I can find those and see! Thank you for the idea