Chlorine poisoning?

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srt4geezer

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Aug 8, 2015
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Man,

was treating my 300 gallon for Ich, 3 days of medicine then I wanted to do a 30% water change. Everything was swell, but within a couple hours of the water change my 6 EB Acaras started freaking out. My catfish as well. Acaras started looking very ragged & fins were "shredding". They pretty much went from blue to white & started swimming up into the corners & breathing heavy. Catfish swimming around erratically running into everything. I had added the water conditioner as I have done many times. By morning some catfish were dead along with 3 acaras. changed 50% of the tank, doubled the water conditioner & added a bunch of stress coat. Fish seemed to have stabilized a bit, but still struggling. Water tests along the way all looked fine. No ammonia, no nitrites. Very sad & frazzled. Even had LFS check water. Nothing obvious. I've lost one more Acara and a small chain loach. 2 remaining Acaras are starting to swim around & entertain brine shrimp. They still look horrible. No idea what happened. Only thing I can think of is some sort of chlorine spike in my tap water. last night added some activated charcoal bags between chambers of my sump. Just trying to pull everything out of the water.
During this whole thing my 12 lamp eye tetras, 5 Danios , 4 skirt tetras & 6 cory cats are acting totally fine & look great. So confused.
 
Wow...so sorry to hear about this.
You may have something with the chlorine spike but it didn't effect all the fish like one would expect....very strange...
I wonder if there could be a pH issue...like an alkaline water. The only time I have ever seen the kind of things you describe for me and my experience has been high pH...but not over night...
 
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LFS tested it & was like 7.5
lost 5th Acara today. I think the damage was done & now they are doomed to fade. Soooo bummed. Freaked out about adding anyone, but that is the only way to know if it i safe since its testing great. I'm going to double dose the water treatment every time now at water change time. I'm going to let the tank just chill for at least a week before I do anything new. Daily 40% water changes in case it's some random thing. Hopefully the Ich is gone as well. Time will tell.

Also going to set-up a small tank to quarantine & hospital all new & sick fish instead of risking the big tank. Fing with a 300 gallon tank suuuuuucks!!!
 
You can contact water supplier to see if they were flushing line, a lot of the time there is even a published schedule on website
 
Sounds very much like chlorine spike in your tap water. Check your water company if there was a pipe replacement work near you. They have to super chlorinate the new section before it puts in service. Also check if they changed the treatment from chlorine to chloramine that can cause problem too.

I don't think your ick medicine is any problem as there was no death for 3 days of treatment. Continue to use the ick medication if ick returns. It's Malachite Green, a good ick remedy, and you don't need to do WC after treatment as it will biodegrade itself.
 
This is not likely something in the water (like pH or chlorine.) Chlorine that kills fish would have almost certainly wiped out the BB as well, which is not indicated, and chlorine that kills some fish isn't likely to leave most of the others looking fine.

Just a guess, but these were likely fish that were unhealthy when acquired, since it seems most of the fish in the tank were acquired in the last 3 weeks. Stocking a tank with a lot of new fish from a LFS creates a decent chance of health issues, so while it's still a guess, it fits better imo with what happened.

Ich may have come with the 6 EB Acaras which is why that one set of fish was ravaged the most.
 
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Drstrangelove said:
This is not likely something in the water (like pH or chlorine.) Chlorine that kills fish would have almost certainly wiped out the BB as well, which is not indicated, and chlorine that kills some fish isn't likely to leave most of the others looking fine.
Just a guess, but these were likely fish that were unhealthy when acquired, since it seems most of the fish in the tank were acquired in the last 3 weeks. Stocking a tank with a lot of new fish from a LFS creates a decent chance of health issues, so while it's still a guess, it fits better imo with what happened.
Ich may have come with the 6 EB Acaras which is why that one set of fish was ravaged the most.
Click to expand...
+1 here. Chlorine or chloramine would have been neutralized by the conditioner, especially if you were double-dosing. Which conditioner did you use and what is the date stamped on the bottom?
I feel as if something else was at play because as said the BB seemed to be stable since your parameters are still in check. Pics of the fish would also go a long way in a better determination.
Did they have any red patches on them? fins? gills?
 
Ich usually takes 3 days to go through cycle at 30°, this medicine seems to play it close to the edge, I'd usually treat for 5 days at least to be safe.

Also, given the stocking level, changing 150 gallons is a massive amount; and probably overkill for that bioload, I get it was to remove the medicine, but I'd personally only remove as much as needed; and for that stock it would probably be 50 gallons changed at a time, max.

Just my own opinion
 
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