98% DEAD (fumigation)

[chesterthehero]

no one important died.. lets just get that out of the way.. all the fish that mattered came with me and as of yesterday were still ok... soon as im done posting this im going to check and see how they are doing..

a few weeks ago i posted that my house was getting fumigated... friday the tents went up and the gas started... everyone that mattered went in rubbermaid tubs and spent the weekend at my work.. no one died in the first move...
the air pumps were turned off.. the tanks were filled to the top.. then a layer of the special "put yer food in these bags cuz they block out the gas" plastic bags were put over the tanks and taped down.. then a wet towel.. then another layer of bags...

however... everyone died except for two swordtails.. one is sorta twitching and half swiming.. the other is swiming very slow... either way they are going to go in the freezer cuz i dont need them magicly living and then dying and being eaten... oh well.. thats why they stayed behind.. they were me "lets see if the gas gets in anyway" fish...

i have not tested the water yet for all i know there may have been a spike in whatever... but for now.. its off to my work to do some water changes and see how everyone else is doing....



my house smells weird.. and slightly like fuzzy dead fish.... they are already rotting....


yay for starting my tanks over...... grrrr

 

[jerppyjerp]

no one important died.. lets just get that out of the way.. all the fish that mattered came with me and as of yesterday were still ok... soon as im done posting this im going to check and see how they are doing..

a few weeks ago i posted that my house was getting fumigated... friday the tents went up and the gas started... everyone that mattered went in rubbermaid tubs and spent the weekend at my work.. no one died in the first move...
the air pumps were turned off.. the tanks were filled to the top.. then a layer of the special "put yer food in these bags cuz they block out the gas" plastic bags were put over the tanks and taped down.. then a wet towel.. then another layer of bags...

however... everyone died except for two swordtails.. one is sorta twitching and half swiming.. the other is swiming very slow... either way they are going to go in the freezer cuz i dont need them magicly living and then dying and being eaten... oh well.. thats why they stayed behind.. they were me "lets see if the gas gets in anyway" fish...

i have not tested the water yet for all i know there may have been a spike in whatever... but for now.. its off to my work to do some water changes and see how everyone else is doing....



my house smells weird.. and slightly like fuzzy dead fish.... they are already rotting....


yay for starting my tanks over...... grrrr

The part I love is when you say "no one important died". Hitler...Good luck

 

[chesterthehero]

MEIN FISCH!!


i mean.. umm....

i just did a quick test... amonia, nitrate, nitrite... everything spiked.. also 100% snail death and those suckers have lived through some insane crashes and a tank that was just left... so im also going to say the gas got to them... oh well...


off to take care of the ones that matter

 

[aquatic_wonders]

I just wonder to how many people has this thing happend too? or was there some instances of success after fumigation that their fish live.

 

[philliptobin]

I lost a lot of fish after a house fire (not to bad, had it out before the fire dept got there) in 1994. I had covered the aquariums (after the fire was put out) and we had a company come and fumigate with smoke eater. Well, they uncovered my aquariums (they couldn't give us a reason why) and the water smelled really strong of the smoke eater stuff. I lost every thing. The worst part was that I was helping a local zoo with some endangered cichilids and I lost them all. But that didn't matter to the zoo, they lost about 2000 of them because they didn't know what the water parameters were supposed to be.

 

[Fish Eat Fish]

wow...maybe you should throw out that food too

 

[LextacySC]

What about the natural gas exchange that takes place with air. You stopped that completly by sealing it off. That would also explain the spikes. Just a thought.

Those bags are also keeping the same air in.

 

[chesterthehero]

What about the natural gas exchange that takes place with air. You stopped that completly by sealing it off. That would also explain the spikes. Just a thought.

Those bags are also keeping the same air in.

yeah this is also known problem.. but not a whole lot could be done about that.. we were thinkin we might get lucky since there were only 15 adult fish and maybe 10/20 2-3 week old fry between the two tanks... with a lot of the plants removed and less than an inch at the top we thought they might make it for the 50 hours or so... but well... no dice...

there was much talk about doing different things... this one sounded logical so we went with it.. either way.. not a big deal... the temp in the tank also jumped up to somewhere around 84-88...i dont think this helped anything since normal temp is 76-78.. either way... oh well.. everyone that mattered is at my work doing just fine..

theres a lot of good in all of this...
-most of the stupid swordtails are dead.. there were way too many and no one to eat them
-way to much plantlife IMO
-a reason to get new gravel.. mixed red, blue and green has lost its charm on me
-all those friggin ramshorn snails... they were nice at first.. but holy cow im sick of dumping them.. though they did keep the tanks very clean
-the harlequin rasboras were over 2 years old and just would not die
-the one neon tetra was just so sketchy looking.. he was almost 4..
-i now have a reason to have a clean bottom tank
-now that the tanks are empty i can rearange the livingroom

and if i do this right... hello new tank.. my gf thinks that getting a 75/125 would be a wonderful thing cuz then "we could get more big fish, these lil ones are nice but i want some fish i can see from across the room"

 

[Kdcarey]

nice but u should have just taken the tanks out and put them in the yard or sumthin

 

[chesterthehero]

if i had put my tanks on the lawn.... not only would all of my fish be dead.. but my tanks would also be busted...


saddly the two swordtails that somehow managed to live in the toxicwast water for 2 days are doing really really good... they other than the tips of their fins rotting off and their gills getting a chemical burns (both of which are healing quickly) they look and are acting normal.. 20-40% water changes every other day and keeping the temp around 80 is working great...

my other fish came home today.. their tank got a good scrubbing.. all the gravel is getting really good cleaning (drying, soaking, rinsing, repeat... im not going to pick out all the dead snails so i plan to rot them clean.. this is going to take a few weeks).. so for now they are back in teir tank with 60% cycled water and established bio filters..

its amazing.. i had the temp tanks set up at my work under a table for a week.. no water changes and only a little bit of light..... i have never seen my pleco look so good.. the last time his color was close to this bright was when i fist got him and he was 3/4 of an inch long..
my emerald cories also got really bright.. one of my trilineatus lost his whiskers and was really pale when i got him home... his color is starting to come back and hes been swiming around playing chasemechaseyou with some of the albino cories so hopefully he will pull through..

so far i have not lost any of the fish that i took with me and overall they are looking pretty good...