Greenspot;2544095; said:
Back then I lived off of allowance=5 bucks a week. Couldn't spend my only 5 bucks on a bucket. That was for fish food and dechlorinator. Good ole milk jug did the job tho for awhile.
How I allmost killed my entire tank off today
- Thread starter hybridtheoryd16
- Start date
Back then I lived off of allowance=5 bucks a week. Couldn't spend my only 5 bucks on a bucket. That was for fish food and dechlorinator. Good ole milk jug did the job tho for awhile.
Man that was a close one. You are doulby lucky that the jump to cold water didn't kill everything but then to jump back to warm water so fast. Would of had the same shock value. Glad to hear most is doing better.
I did a water change yesterday and just turned it on hot to let the water go out of the tank into the sink with the python. Well since the hose is like 50 feet long there wasn't enough pressure with just the hot on full blast and it slowly started to leak back in. Hot as hell water too, I walked away for a few minutes checked on the 55 and was like WTF why is it filling back up. Put my hand in and it was around 87 with the thermometer. It was weird.
hybridtheoryd16;2539757; said:Well i have been keeping fish for around 15+ years and rare somewhat hard to keep fish for about 2-4 yrs. I have allways done my water changes the same way every week. My routine is with a python and i allways do weekly 50%'s. When i refill I have allways just used the cold side of the sink and refilled slowly and add my dechlorinator before i started to refill. And this has allways worked flawlessly. Until today that is. i went to do a WC on the big tank and drained it like normal and added my ph buffer and dechlorinator and started to refill. Everything was fine until i noticed that one of my Payara was starting to lay over on its side a little. So that got my attention 100% so i set down and started chaecking all the fish out. I then noticed that one of my Hujeta's was belly up in the corner under a amazon sword. As freak out mode set in I jumped up and reached in the tank to grab the fish so that i could try and revive it. I instanly noticed that the tank was cold and i mean goose bumps cold. I immediatly checked the thermometer and it was around 50 degree's. WOW---So then I jumped into action and ripped the hose off the back of the washing machine so that i could get some hot water in the tank. ( I am in the basment with no other source of hot water at the time.) Then I hooked that up and started to fill with hot water. I then got 2 bucket and a peice of old hose and started to drain some more of the tank water as the hot run in from one end. I kept doing the bucket drain method until i got the temp back up to around the 75 mark over a 15min period. By then every fish in the tank was jerking and twitching and all three of my prized red tailed payara's were in the plants on there sides or backs and breathing very slowly. I turned out the light and added salt at 1tbs per 5g and turned the air pump on at max and added another power head facing the payara's. I thought for sure they were dead and just had not realized it yet. But after a hour or so they were right side up again but still breathing funny and not swimming at all. And after 4 hours they have move locations but are not out and about like usual. The hujeta's snapped out of it completely with in the first hour and my bichir never missed a beat thru the whole ordeal. So the moreal of the story is I learned a very important lesson today. And now i have to modify my plumbing so that i can refill with proper temp. water.
I store my water in 40 gal rubbermaid trash cans in the basement now. The cans have heaters , carbon filters and the water is treated 24 hrs before placing replacement water in my tanks now.
I threw my python system out....
I do most of my water changes with cold or room temp water...Refill slowly to avoid temp shocks. In my parents' cellar the hot water was treated with water softener salt that I'd prefer not to use. I miss my automatic water changer.
