What just killed all my fish?!

[sanchay]

View attachment 141592Does anyone Know what is going on here... these fish were perfectly fine two days ago and within the last 24 hours almost every fish in the tank died and looks like this! Please help!!

i had the exact same issue...my mollies died back to back....all my water parameters were prefect....only after a few months of the incident I found out that my water source was the problem....I used to use canned water for my fish tank....and it seems they mix chemicals in the water to neutralise the water to give it a stable 7 ph....that chemical killed all my poor mollies....If you are also using any kind of canned or bottled water for your tank....change it ASAP

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

i had the exact same issue...my mollies died back to back....all my water parameters were prefect....only after a few months of the incident I found out that my water source was the problem....I used to use canned water for my fish tank....and it seems they mix chemicals in the water to neutralise the water to give it a stable 7 ph....that chemical killed all my poor mollies....If you are also using any kind of canned or bottled water for your tank....change it ASAP

Did you not user a water conditioner?

 

[Christen26]

View attachment 141592Does anyone Know what is going on here... these fish were perfectly fine two days ago and within the last 24 hours almost every fish in the tank died and looks like this! Please help!!

I'm so sorry. I have a feeling the pH adjuster did it. I had a similar problem but I read any sudden change in pH can cause this. I admit I have not read all the rest of the replies. I'll defer to the experts.

 

[dasaltemelosguy]

When I first began fishkeeping, I knew little and reading all the rhetoric about which fish prefer which PH was confusing so naturally, I asked the LFS for advice and they sold me PH Down and PH Up. I eagerly added one (I forget now which direction it was now as it was many years ago) thinking 'I was optimizing their water conditions' and 25 fish, all but one had perished overnight. A sudden or drastic PH change is almost always fatal or does so much damage, they don't live very long.

If you give most any fish any PH SLOWLY, they'll adapt and thrive in it. Yes, optimal PH has virtues, especially species-dependent virtues but a stable PH is imperative.

If you know you have an established nitrogen cycle, and you know the water is treated, and you measure the parameters weekly or whenever there's reason to suspect they may have changed, just allow them to adapt to your PH. NEVER allow PH to vary more than 0.3/day. Less is even better but I've had no issues with 0.3/day. I once did a large WC and it moved 0.5 and they were all visibly very uncomfortable and breathing rapidly and one parrot fish died. Frankly, I was just lucky so I'm much more careful now. Don't feel badly. We've all made similar mistakes with similar tragedies when starting.

 

[sanchay]

Did you not user a water conditioner?

the chemicals aint chlorine....adding water conditioners did not help

 

[Guest14017]

I have a pH of 9+ off the charts on the API kit coming from my tap. With 0 KH and 0 GH. The pH can drop from 9+ to 6 in less than 24 hours. Buffering it isn't reliable and it still causes it to swing around. If left alone to crash... it still swings around sometimes, but not as much as it does when I try to buffer it.

I had guppies do extremely well and breed insane with nearly no losses at all for 6 months or so before I got rid of them due to overbreeding. I cannot say how long they would have continued to do well but they definitely were doing well.

 

[DoubleDutch]

What is the ph and hardness of your tap water? That is important

Expecting very soft water reading about the Ph swings.