Fish Died / Dying After Water Change

[NitroK]

Hi,

I did a 50% water change today (330 gallon tank) and after about an hour both my tinfoil barbs and bala shark were swimming upside down and then died. Checked my ph and its (7.2). Problem is the other fish - arowana, oscar and remaining bala shark are moving their gills rapidly. Any ideas as I don't think they will make it through the night. Thanks

 

[ltvills]

ohhh... did u treat the water and introduce it to them slowly? or just poured it in?
usualy i let 3 hours standing time for water and do 3/4 fills every hour

 

[NitroK]

treated the water for chlorine and introduced it slowly into the tank. I have been doing it the same way for the last 3 months....no problems.

What would cause them to die so fast? They just turned upside down and died.

 

[ltvills]

ohhh i have heard of some water quality issues like this before. but ur water is treated.. it shouldnt have been a problem...
im stumped too.

 

[ltvills]

ohhh i have heard of some water quality issues like this before. but ur water is treated.. it shouldnt have been a problem...
im stumped too.

 

[felixxx]

Im in no way experienced but sounds to me like some sort of contamination? Washing up liquid or something silly on your hands?

 

[honda237]

treated the water for chlorine and introduced it slowly into the tank. I have been doing it the same way for the last 3 months....no problems.

What would cause them to die so fast? They just turned upside down and died.

i would call the water company and see if anything has changed. Just a few months back, a good LFS did water changes like normal but lost half of their stock in a less than a half an hour, turns out, the city decided to open an old well back up which had huge amounts of ammonia.

 

[kdrun76]

Call the water company right now!


I too have heard of this before. They flush their lines or add lots of extra chlorine at random as part of maintenance.

Add extra dechlorinator to the tank right now too. It can't hurt.

 

[chefjamesscott]

I have a little trick that I do with my tanks to prevent things like this.

I add prime to the tank before I pull out the water that I am changing. Then prior to adding the water back in I add the needed amount of prime to dechlor the water being put back in. I usually add the prime right where filter flow is to ensure a more rapid mix.

I put the prime in first to keep down and stress related water spikes do to fish getting freaked by the w/c.

 

[NitroK]

i added more anti-chlorine and aquarium salt (heard it supposed to help). The arowana seems to be swimming OK but the alligator gar looks a bit dazed at the bottom of the tank.