Experiencing a crisis and lost a lot of fish in my father's 57 gallon, overstocked tank.
I've been in a bad depression and admit to neglecting caring for that tank, pretty sure it's tipped into old tank syndrome, it's overstocked since I haven't pulled young livebearers for a while, but it had been ticking over okay for a while.
A few days ago, found the last of the trio of ancient large mollies dying. I placed her in a breeder box so the other fish couldn't peck at her, and she passed overnight, I removed her in the morning.
Yesterday, found a zebra danio and a harlequin dead. There's masses of plant in there, loads of water lettuce and elodea, so I think the bodies might have been in there too long and spiked ammonia high. Since I knew I'd slacked on water changes, I only did a 15-20% water change yesterday, and added some Prime, hoping it would help with any spikes. Later found another danio dead, did a water test and ammonia showed zero, nitrites 0.5ppm, nitrates sky high, deep red.
Today, have pulled six dead fish. Did another 15-20% W/C, added more prime.
I'm scared to do a large water change, despite really wanting to... I don't want to make it worse and kill the other fish with a large change in water quality too suddenly.
Turns out, my dad had turned the overhead filters off... I hadn't seen since he'd just pulled the plug loose, not out, and the heavy plant cover hides the output. The day after he'd unplugged the main filter, leaving only a tiny internal filter on a large overstocked tank - fish started dying.
Lost one of the botia which I'm heartbroken about, and the largest female cory is gasping in a way that worries me. I'm so tempted to pull some fish and put them in my own tanks to try to save them and to reduce the bioload, but I also know the sudden change in water would be likely to kill them. I feel helpless just waiting til tomorrow to do another small water change while a fish is struggling, but the rest of the fish also look okay. Not gasping or fin clamped or anything, and I know to avoid big water changes in old tank syndrome.
What do you think I should do? Another W/C tonight and hope that's enough to save the cory and danio that are sitting on the bottom and breathing rapidly, or wait and accept that there could well be more losses? Move some fish out to reduce bioload? Perhaps drip acclimate them to my own, clean tanks?
I've been in a bad depression and admit to neglecting caring for that tank, pretty sure it's tipped into old tank syndrome, it's overstocked since I haven't pulled young livebearers for a while, but it had been ticking over okay for a while.
A few days ago, found the last of the trio of ancient large mollies dying. I placed her in a breeder box so the other fish couldn't peck at her, and she passed overnight, I removed her in the morning.
Yesterday, found a zebra danio and a harlequin dead. There's masses of plant in there, loads of water lettuce and elodea, so I think the bodies might have been in there too long and spiked ammonia high. Since I knew I'd slacked on water changes, I only did a 15-20% water change yesterday, and added some Prime, hoping it would help with any spikes. Later found another danio dead, did a water test and ammonia showed zero, nitrites 0.5ppm, nitrates sky high, deep red.
Today, have pulled six dead fish. Did another 15-20% W/C, added more prime.
I'm scared to do a large water change, despite really wanting to... I don't want to make it worse and kill the other fish with a large change in water quality too suddenly.
Turns out, my dad had turned the overhead filters off... I hadn't seen since he'd just pulled the plug loose, not out, and the heavy plant cover hides the output. The day after he'd unplugged the main filter, leaving only a tiny internal filter on a large overstocked tank - fish started dying.
Lost one of the botia which I'm heartbroken about, and the largest female cory is gasping in a way that worries me. I'm so tempted to pull some fish and put them in my own tanks to try to save them and to reduce the bioload, but I also know the sudden change in water would be likely to kill them. I feel helpless just waiting til tomorrow to do another small water change while a fish is struggling, but the rest of the fish also look okay. Not gasping or fin clamped or anything, and I know to avoid big water changes in old tank syndrome.
What do you think I should do? Another W/C tonight and hope that's enough to save the cory and danio that are sitting on the bottom and breathing rapidly, or wait and accept that there could well be more losses? Move some fish out to reduce bioload? Perhaps drip acclimate them to my own, clean tanks?
No wonder fish started dropping. That only left a tiny little internal filter on an overstocked, 57 gallon tank which I only really added for oxygenation/flow reasons, not to handle that bioload!
I hope 
