10 angels DEAD, What did I do?

[Exile]

I had a beautiful hand picked group of 19 angels in my 125g all atleast half dollar size if not full grown and I am now down to 9 of them over the course of 3-4 days. Was terrible I would wake up in the morning to 2-3 of my fish dead. I am gonna type this out sequentialy so you can understand what happened during that week.

1. Friday- LPS had a huge sale for Black Friday, bought 3 clown loaches, 5 cory cats. They went in fine. Friday I also dosed the tank with API's pH Down, dosed it for about 50 gallons worth. Also resupplied on frozen bloodworm which I fed the angels that night.
2. Saturday- I wake up to one of my adult angels dead, figured my oversized "needs to be rehomed" 11inch pleco was the culprit. Hes killed a angel and broken stuff in my tank before because he swims so sporadically.
3. Sunday- I wake up to 2-3 more dead angels. Both were perfectly fine and eating the night before. I did a 80% water change at noon then did another 30% water change that evening. Also got two more clown loaches because one of the corys' I bought friday died for unknown reasons. At this point all my angels were all breathing very rapidly and they weren't acknowledging me when I went up to the tank. I did not feed them their bloodworms because I was suspicious they might be "bad". Flakes only.
4. Monday- 3 more dead angels, still breathing rapidly and ignoring me. Did another 40% water change that evening. I also added my oxygen infuser tube to my powerhead ( I didn't rinse the tube before putting it in the tank, was brand new )
5. Tuesday- More dead angels. I don't remember how many, 2-3 probably.
6. Wednesday- The epidemic seemed to subsided with 10 angels dead. The remaining ones were back to normal eating and swimming like crazy when I approached the tank.
7. Friday- Changed all the filter media, did another 40% water change.

Those events leave me with these possibilitys:

• The new cory cats and clown loaches introduced something that was very deadly to the angels but not themselves (excluding the one cory that died)
• The bloodworms were "tainted" or spoiled.
• The minuscule dosage of pH Down shocked the angels which continued to kill them even after 110% water change followed by another 40% the next day.
• The un-rinsed Air Line for my powerhead introduced a toxic substance that ONLY affected the angels (unlikely I know)

NOTE: During all this my nitrates/nitrites were non-existent and my pH never fluctuated despite my attempt to do so. This tank has been setup for 4 months now, had fish in it since 2 weeks after initial setup.

Going to be treating the tank for 5 days with Melafix starting today. Currently not feeding them bloodworms or using pH Down any longer.



Appreciate any input.

 

[uncwnells]

im going to guess it was either the ph down or the shock to your bioload. Its more likely it was the ph down and the angels died because they are more sensitive than your cories and cls .

 

[dookie]

what kind of cory were they? certain species can release a toxin into the tank. Also, what does "dosing 50 gallons worth mean?" There is no such thing as a dosage when using an agent to drop pH. One must use a test kit in order to raise and lower pH accordingly. Each tank has different elements that can effect pH.

 

[Exile]

I am in denial that it was my own fault but yes I agree pH down does seem the most likely cause. Shock to bio-load is unlikely the tank is over-filtered and underpopulated. Thnx

 

[Exile]

what kind of cory were they? certain species can release a toxin into the tank.

The cory that died was a Bandit Cory, if thats not specific enough let me know.

 

[Fat Homer]

I had a beautiful hand picked group of 19 angels in my 125g all atleast half dollar size if not full grown and I am now down to 9 of them over the course of 3-4 days. Was terrible I would wake up in the morning to 2-3 of my fish dead. I am gonna type this out sequentialy so you can understand what happened during that week.

1. Friday- LPS had a huge sale for Black Friday, bought 3 clown loaches, 5 cory cats. They went in fine. Friday I also dosed the tank with API's pH Down, dosed it for about 50 gallons worth. Also resupplied on frozen bloodworm which I fed the angels that night.
2. Saturday- I wake up to one of my adult angels dead, figured my oversized "needs to be rehomed" 11inch pleco was the culprit. Hes killed a angel and broken stuff in my tank before because he swims so sporadically.
3. Sunday- I wake up to 2-3 more dead angels. Both were perfectly fine and eating the night before. I did a 80% water change at noon then did another 30% water change that evening. Also got two more clown loaches because one of the corys' I bought friday died for unknown reasons. At this point all my angels were all breathing very rapidly and they weren't acknowledging me when I went up to the tank. I did not feed them their bloodworms because I was suspicious they might be "bad". Flakes only.
4. Monday- 3 more dead angels, still breathing rapidly and ignoring me. Did another 40% water change that evening. I also added my oxygen infuser tube to my powerhead ( I didn't rinse the tube before putting it in the tank, was brand new )
5. Tuesday- More dead angels. I don't remember how many, 2-3 probably.
6. Wednesday- The epidemic seemed to subsided with 10 angels dead. The remaining ones were back to normal eating and swimming like crazy when I approached the tank.
7. Friday- Changed all the filter media, did another 40% water change.

Those events leave me with these possibilitys:

• The new cory cats and clown loaches introduced something that was very deadly to the angels but not themselves (excluding the one cory that died)
• The bloodworms were "tainted" or spoiled.
• The minuscule dosage of pH Down shocked the angels which continued to kill them even after 110% water change followed by another 40% the next day.
• The un-rinsed Air Line for my powerhead introduced a toxic substance that ONLY affected the angels (unlikely I know)

NOTE: During all this my nitrates/nitrites were non-existent and my pH never fluctuated despite my attempt to do so. This tank has been setup for 4 months now, had fish in it since 2 weeks after initial setup.

Going to be treating the tank for 5 days with Melafix starting today. Currently not feeding them bloodworms or using pH Down any longer.



Appreciate any input.

Just an educated guess, but could it be possibly also due to you basically changing out 110% of their water within less than 24 hours?

 

[Exile]

They were all breathing rapidly before the water change, thats what provoked me to do it, suppose I should have said that before I mentioned the water changes. Same breathing after the water changes as there was before hand.

 

[Exile]

• The un-rinsed Air Line for my powerhead introduced a toxic substance that ONLY affected the angels (unlikely I know)

This is self-eliminating according to the timeline. I am tired, sorry.

 

[hybridtheoryd16]

#1 sign of stress in fish = heavy rapid breathing

19 half dollar to full grown anything will be enough to throw a 125g into a mini cycle.

Mini-cycle equals ammonia and nitrite which means lots of stress for fish.

Bagging and transporting fish causes stress.

The Ph down may have caused a PH swing or rapid move in the PH number. Ph swings cause alot of stress.

While large water changes can be preformed with out any major stress. There a very few people that I know that can do this. Not saying you can't do it. But it is very easy to get the water temp off a few degree's. Add to much prime and delete the oxygen content in the water. Drain and fill to quickly. And any one of these can and will cause stress to your fish.

So my answer is stress induced death from

1. Bagging and transportation stress.
2. Bioload shock induced mini-cycle letting ammonia and nitrite build up to a stressful level.
3. PH swing from additive that caused stress.
4. Stress from a to large and to frequent of water changes.

 

[dookie]

Yup, the banded cory is the type that can emit a poison. However since not everyone was effected, this is most likely not the case. You mentioned, although you put the pH down into the tank, the pH was uneffected so that leads me to think that was not it. Any milky slime on the angels? I would run some carbon through the water to pull out any contaminants.