Ok I was worried that i had made some beginner mistake with the carbon and meds, even knowing the role of the carbon in the system. But it was more a mistake of degrees, and my own fault that lead to this. I really appreciate the comments and the understanding. I feel absolutely horrid knowing I caused this after I had been so careful for so long
Diagnosing a Massive Die off
- Thread starter OpalAquarium
- Start date
Ok I was worried that i had made some beginner mistake with the carbon and meds, even knowing the role of the carbon in the system. But it was more a mistake of degrees, and my own fault that lead to this. I really appreciate the comments and the understanding. I feel absolutely horrid knowing I caused this after I had been so careful for so long
No worries, all part of the hobby, trial and error. Clear those MTS out before you start over and I think you'll be fine.
Hello; I find this a plausable possibility. The tank was stocked fairly heavy with fish had a fair bioload, add to this the bioload of all the snails and decay byproducts from excess food. A tightrope tank, meaning the balance is easy to get out of whack. I speculate there likely was excess food about as that is how I have induced an excess population of the MTS (snails) in tanks over the decades. A sharp reduction of available food could lead to a die off of a sufficent number of snails to foul the tank. My experience has been that the MTS do not reach large populations when their food supply is restricted.
I can also see the oily film being adding to the the issue. There is some exchange of gasses at the surface of the water. Add to the oily film that live plants use oxygen in the dark peroids.
I am not familiar with liquid CO2. Correct my assumption if it is off base, but the liquid CO2 is somehow to add carbon dioxide or just carbon for the plants? If this chemical works then the live plants could have been more active in their dark phase growth and this may have added to the oxygen demand of the tank.
Supposing the oxygen levels were already reduced as speculated by the above, then the tank may have had a cascade of events. Perhaps for some reason a first fish dies and begins to decay adding to events and being a tipping point. The power goes off at my place for short peroids from time to time often in the middle of the night, could something like that have happened?
If your detective work does not yield an answer, may I make a couple of suggestions. I run bubblers all the time, that might be worth considering. I also went to lighter fish stocking some decades ago in all my tanks and have found positive benefits. It might be that the lighter stocking will give more of a cushion before a tank reaches a tipping point.
A third thing might be to rethink the use of the several chemicals you mention. I understand the need for prime, but am not familiar with the others as I do not use them.
Good luck
I also think it was most likely a DO issue and a cascade effect. I did not see an ammonia reading when you tested and got nitrites but if you had a death in the night and low oxygen levels it could easily cause a catastrophic chain reaction. Sorry for your loss, that must have been a rough morning for you
You are right on the money on the rough morning, this was my prize tank :/ I didnt take ammonia readings as i was out of the test materials, but i saved a water sample and went out and got more test material for ammonia, I plan to do that tonight. I am expecting to see high levels of it as my surviors didnt last another day in a safe tank with similar water conditions. I think the (Unconfirmed) ammonia spike probably damaged the gills of the survivors
hello; Not sure the ammonia reading now will reflect the past. It is my understanding that the ammonia levels are not static in a tank with a population of beneficial bacteria (bb). Some will depend on what has been going on in the tank in the meantime. I take it that the tank has continued to run with it's filtration and other equipment still in operation and that only the affected fish have been removed?
I follow that you intend to test the sample you saved. I do not recall from past lab work how stable ammonia may be in such a sample. I do recall having to chemically "lock" oxygen levels on site when taking samples from streams. I also think some other required such a "lock" but do not recall them at the moment.
One thing you may learn is an indicator of the health of the bb in the tank. If the ammonia in the sample is indeed higher than that currently in the tank, then that should indicate the bb are still active in the tank.
