I recently added a JUWEL Rio 400 to my collection of tanks and after setting it up and putting a variety of gouramies in it, my tank start growing algea at an alarming rate. I therefore purchased a UV light to clear the tank. BIG MISTAKE. all 30 fish died overnight. The tank is clearing, but at a huge loss. I have no put golden apple snails in the tank with some algea eaters and promptly removed the UV lamp. It will be great if anyone can give some imput if I am going in the right direction. I admit that I am still learning as I go. This is the first time I have also been on a blog. I am very excited to learn so much from everyone.
UV Lamps
- Thread starter Bancroft hatcheries
- Start date
I'm not sure how that could happen. What makes you think buying a UV killed all your fish overnight?
+1 unless the fish were somehow going through the uv that wasnt what killed them
450 Liters or 120 gallons is a decent sized tank. you mentioned that you have several other tanks, was this one fully cycled before adding all of the fish? The fact that you started having a massive algae bloom would indicate that there was a large amount of nutrients in the tank for the algae to grow. This could have been in the form of high nitrates (harmful to fish), fish waste, and uneaten food, which could have led to an ammonia spike and high nitrites and nitrates. No matter what caused the algae to bloom, the algae itself is the most likely culprit for the fishes death. Rapid large scale algae blooms quickly use up all the dissolved oxygen in the water and the fish suffocate to death. A good example of this is red tides in the ocean that cause massive fish deaths.
Another possibility is bad manufacture of the UV light itself. UV (granted, usually over time) will break plastic down and corrode it. This will contaminate the water. It's usually fine because we do water changes, and the break down is so slow that nothing even remotely noticeable can build up. However, if you just HAPPEN to find a UV light made with a bulb that super intense (for a tank that size, if it's using a single bulb... that's a pretty intense UV) and had a problem with the wiring or some such that had it running full throttle, and it just happened to not burn out. It's not likely by ANY means whatsoever, but a possibility that it could have burnt the plastic housing it's in and caused a poisoning. Either that, or the bulb itself could have broken / fried and poisoned the water. The chances of this happening are astronomical, but not impossible.
