tragedy strikes my 10g

gravity · Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 3:28 pm Post subject: tragedy strikes my 10g

Well, I got to work this morning and immediately checked my tank. ALL of my fish died! I don't understand what happened. I kept the same filter media, the same decorations, and about half of the same water. The heater works fine, the new water was treated and the temperature was the same as when I pulled them out. The only thing I could think of that I might have missed was that maybe I didn't rinse the new gravel enough and something was on it that killed my fish.

I'm going to try to put a positive spin on this, so I'm going to restock the tank after letting it (re)cycle for a week. I'm leaning towards trying shelldwellers, but I was wondering what else I might be able to try as far as cichlids in a 10g. Here's my short list of possibilities:

Shelldwellers
Julidochromis
Rams (?)

Any suggestions or other possibilities? A 10g is all my work will let me have....

DUCKLE-BUM · Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 3:36 pm Post subject:

Hi Gravity,

What type of fish were in the tank?
Do you have any water test results? (ph, nitrates, nitrates)

It's difficult to say for sure what happened, but some LFS gravel can be highly contaminated and does need to be washed thoroughly.

Vbrgds
DB Smile

grnlemonade · Super Senior Member Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 1027

thats not cool.....you didnt rinse the gravel with any type of cleaner, did you? your supposed to use only wate and nothnig els, so if you did use a soap or cleaner, that is probably the reason.

DUCKLE-BUM · Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 3:43 pm Post subject:

....just a thought, if you changed/washed your gravel, cleaned the filter and changed the water you would have lost alot of the good bacteria that build up and whcih the fish rely upon.
With no bacteria in your tank to convert the harmful waste that builds up, the ammonia levels build up and can kill fish very quickly.

grnlemonade · Super Senior Member Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 1027

what kind of fish were in there? you might have had a really needy fish and it could have been stressed like heck from the change.....some fish are hardier than others.......my cichlids never minded when i redecorated the whole tank, but when i had community fish they would freak out.

gravity · Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 4:02 pm Post subject:

I didn't test the water because I've never, in any of my tanks, had anything like this happen. Even if I had tested the water, I would've had to put the fish back in the tank because I had no way to transport the fish to my apartment. I timed the gravel change with a water change, so the roughly 50% change shouldn't have been too harsh. I guess maybe the combination of the water change and gravel change may have put too much stress on the fish.

I lost a midnight molly, 3 albino cories, 2 zebra danios, and 2 gold dust platies.

EDIT: I only used water to rinse the gravel.

t_chelle16 · Moderator Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 3437

I agree with DUCKLE-BUM. Changing the water and cleaning the filter media (or did you actually replace it?) likely made you loose a huge portion of your bacteria. The tank was pretty heavily stocked so the ammonia probably got really high fairly quickly.

-Chelle

Petz8888 · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:09 pm Post subject:

Im sooooooooo sorry!!!!!

Ya chances are you had an ammonia spike.

Sad

TA TA!
Petz