Disaster goodbye tanganyikan and others tank

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dragonfish70

dragonfish70

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
May 1, 2012
167
1
33
San Diego
Well sadly today I woke up to about 35 of my fish dead in my standard 125 gallon. The casualties are: 13 out if 20 of my 3" f1 frontosa mpimbwe i've been growing out for 4 months, 5 brichardi cichlids, 2 leleupis, 2 synodontis decorus, 7 cyprichromis kitumba, 16 3" clown loaches. My tank has been up and running for over a year now. I've tested my tap water and so far its 0 ammonia 0 nitrate and nitrite and ph 7.6. My tank has the same readings but my nitrate only gets to 50 or lower (really hard to tell cause my master test kit's colors are so freaking similar) and ph 7.8 because of rocks. They have been together for over 3 months no aggression problems fed every other day. Before the disaster I did my routine water change of 50% to keep nitrates low. Ive done the same thing since I set it up. My question is WHAT WENT WRONG? I am deeply discouraged right now and makes me want to quit. Now I need to sell off all the other fish to start over. They all appear fine coming towards the tank no stress nothing unafraid of being hand fed. Any help is appreciated. Should I go for hardier fish like big haps? My tank is 6ft by 18" by 2ft with a fluval fx5 lighting is a zoo med reef sun 50 50 bulb substrate is quikrete play sand(too lazy to change to PFS), i only feed 2mm and 3mm NLS cichlid formula, temperature is 78 f. So far the only thing they add in tapwater here in SD county is chlorine. I dont use dechlorinator but i let water sit in my 7 buckets for 24-48 hours. I just dont want to quit this hobby but it's very discouraging. Any help in what to stock next would be appreciated. -AJ


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Any foreign chemicals could have wiped them out as well...

Febreeze
chemical residue on your hands
soap

With your tap, I would still use some sort of de-chlorinator even with the aging, could it be Chloramines? Some city water supply will or have switched to chloramines.
 
Ordered some dechlorinators as we speak. Soap i never use with my aquarium stuff. Febreze maybe I do spray it in the room but never in large amounts or directly over my fish tank. It does have a cover. I never really handle my fish i just throw in food mostly. Most likely something wrong with the water.


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I dont have a heater my room is pretty warm already never goes below 76 as I am in socal also. Hmmm will check the fluval. But is my filtration enough?


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As stated above chloromine is sometimes used by the water dept. to shock drinking water. What a dechlorinator will do is take out the chlorine and leave behind the ammonia. Good luck
 
sounds like the city dumped chlormines into your water. they tend to do that after a rain storm and esp during the summer. when was your last water change?
should always use dechlornator btw, if not just for the chlormines/chlorine, also for the neutralization of ammonia.
 
anarekist said:
sounds like the city dumped chlormines into your water. they tend to do that after a rain storm and esp during the summer. when was your last water change?
should always use dechlornator btw, if not just for the chlormines/chlorine, also for the neutralization of ammonia.
Click to expand...

+1

I find that many things we do in this hobby are done just in case the extreams occur. In other words.....declorinator is used just in case the city spikes the levels of chlorine or cloramine. Heaters are used just in case the temp drops too low at night when no one is around to watch it. Declorinator in around 12 bucks and a decent heater is around 30 bucks. For 42 bucks you might have saved the stock. IMO always take the extra step or buy an extra peice of equipment. Its always better than losing your stock.

Did u have any air stones in the tank? I recently came home and lost all my fish besides 4 bichirs. That reason i didnt lose them was because they could breath air from the surface. The fish that survived.....are they also air breathers.

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If i put a heater in even if I set it to 78f the water goes to 85. I do have a heater for it and I check my around the clock everytime I look at my fish. I know I shouldve bought some dechlor. Stupid me. Fluval seems to be fine. Now short circuits. I do have a battery powered air pump incase there's a black out. Question about seachem so it says you can add it while putting water in the tank? Is it best to put it before the water change?Also if I put it before I do the water change could I immediately put that water in?


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