I bought a 125 gallon tank about a year ago, prepared it for fish with a nitrogen cycle and some feeder fish, put fish in the tank, ended up moving the tank to a new apartment, and had everything fine up to about a week ago.
I had a 1 foot pacu, a 9 inch albino oscar, a 11 inch albino giant gourami, and a flowerhorn in a makeshift jail because I needed to setup a tank for him to be alone. Beautiful fish with an attitude at 4 inches.
Right now, the oscar and flowerhorn have died. The pacu is dying now. The gourami appears to be holding. I have no idea why the fish are dying individually. The gourami isn't that aggressive and the fish aren't dying on account of that from what I can see.
Before the fish started dying, I had noticed a burning smell in the house. Occassionally a tortilla will burn on the stove and I don't think anything of it. Coincidentally, this was one of those days. The smell didn't go away over night so I started sniffing for a source but apparently the heater was no longer functional and producing quite so potent of a smell. The light on the heater was not on and I knew what had happened, it had broken.
Unfortunately, the water temperature dropped horribly because the outside temperature was about 20 degrees. The water was very cold and I didn't have any heaters for a 125 gallon tank. I bought 2 200 W heaters and used 150 W in addition to the other 150 W and 100 W that were already in the tank to try and bring the temperature up and it didn't come up until the new 300W came in the mail yesterday. The water came up to 75 and then I brought all of them up to 86 where the tank had been.
While the temperature came up, the flowerhorn died. After the flowerhorn died, the oscar floundered and then died. Now, the pacu is dying. I have melafix and salt in the tank to try and cure any disease but the water quality is about the same. Did the cold kill all the bacteria and now the fish are being attacked? Are the fish dying because the temperature didn't come back up fast enough?
Symptoms: listless or unusually calm behavior, heavy breathing, color change due to gill enflamation, tossing and turning maybe because of swim bladder problems, and finally death.
So far, it is just one fish at a time. The gourami is the same as usual. I think this is maybe because the temperature change didn't affect him? This is why I can't decide what the problem is or what to do now that the fish are dying and I seem to have 1 with hopes of 2 left. If It were disease, why doesn't the gourami have any problems? If you have any suggestions, please send them. I don't want to loose my pacu or gourami.
The only other thing I can think of is that maybe the water is too hot now. I lowered the temperature back down to 80 to see if this will help either of them. At one point in time before I had bought the 125 gallon aquarium, my 55 gallon aquarium was running and had a heater burn up and heat the water to about 105 degrees overnight. Only 5 fish survived. In case it has become a concern, these are not DIY heaters. They have been different brands. The latest break has been a 300 W marineland heater. the 2 200 W heaters are tetra and seem to be working but are from walmart and didn't seem to be able to handle the job together. Am I just not having luck with heaters? Do heaters need dry time? Is there some maintenance I don't know about? Because of these problems, I have become more interested in a perhaps more reliable DIY heater. I don't know how I would do it but I am willing to believe that I can do at least as good of a job at heating an aquarium for 5 weeks and then surprising everyone with 40 or 105 degree water overnight.
First thing is first. Please let me know how to help my fish. Thank you for reading.
I had a 1 foot pacu, a 9 inch albino oscar, a 11 inch albino giant gourami, and a flowerhorn in a makeshift jail because I needed to setup a tank for him to be alone. Beautiful fish with an attitude at 4 inches.
Right now, the oscar and flowerhorn have died. The pacu is dying now. The gourami appears to be holding. I have no idea why the fish are dying individually. The gourami isn't that aggressive and the fish aren't dying on account of that from what I can see.
Before the fish started dying, I had noticed a burning smell in the house. Occassionally a tortilla will burn on the stove and I don't think anything of it. Coincidentally, this was one of those days. The smell didn't go away over night so I started sniffing for a source but apparently the heater was no longer functional and producing quite so potent of a smell. The light on the heater was not on and I knew what had happened, it had broken.
Unfortunately, the water temperature dropped horribly because the outside temperature was about 20 degrees. The water was very cold and I didn't have any heaters for a 125 gallon tank. I bought 2 200 W heaters and used 150 W in addition to the other 150 W and 100 W that were already in the tank to try and bring the temperature up and it didn't come up until the new 300W came in the mail yesterday. The water came up to 75 and then I brought all of them up to 86 where the tank had been.
While the temperature came up, the flowerhorn died. After the flowerhorn died, the oscar floundered and then died. Now, the pacu is dying. I have melafix and salt in the tank to try and cure any disease but the water quality is about the same. Did the cold kill all the bacteria and now the fish are being attacked? Are the fish dying because the temperature didn't come back up fast enough?
Symptoms: listless or unusually calm behavior, heavy breathing, color change due to gill enflamation, tossing and turning maybe because of swim bladder problems, and finally death.
So far, it is just one fish at a time. The gourami is the same as usual. I think this is maybe because the temperature change didn't affect him? This is why I can't decide what the problem is or what to do now that the fish are dying and I seem to have 1 with hopes of 2 left. If It were disease, why doesn't the gourami have any problems? If you have any suggestions, please send them. I don't want to loose my pacu or gourami.
The only other thing I can think of is that maybe the water is too hot now. I lowered the temperature back down to 80 to see if this will help either of them. At one point in time before I had bought the 125 gallon aquarium, my 55 gallon aquarium was running and had a heater burn up and heat the water to about 105 degrees overnight. Only 5 fish survived. In case it has become a concern, these are not DIY heaters. They have been different brands. The latest break has been a 300 W marineland heater. the 2 200 W heaters are tetra and seem to be working but are from walmart and didn't seem to be able to handle the job together. Am I just not having luck with heaters? Do heaters need dry time? Is there some maintenance I don't know about? Because of these problems, I have become more interested in a perhaps more reliable DIY heater. I don't know how I would do it but I am willing to believe that I can do at least as good of a job at heating an aquarium for 5 weeks and then surprising everyone with 40 or 105 degree water overnight.
First thing is first. Please let me know how to help my fish. Thank you for reading.
