Lost 15 CL in 4 days !! Why?

[koop171]

Ok my g/fs tank HAD 16 CLs ranging from 3-5.5" and a few with saddle backs and two with spots. And within 4 days we have lost all but one and he's on the way out right now also.


I never introduced may fish at once and it's been almost a month since any were introduced.

The tank is a 54 corner filtered by a 305 packed with bio media.

All of the fish looked fine this time last week eating well and swiming like normal. The only thing that I can think of that happened is we changed the filter pads in the 305 about 10 days ago and I think we might have killed off some BB from the bio media. after we lost the first three fish the first day I did a WC and then checked the ammo levels and they were 1.5 after the WC. so I think that might be the issue but after 3 more WCs we still lost all but one loach.


The only external issues I have seen is it looked like their slime coat we comming off when I took the dead ones out they looked like you could just peel all the slime coat right off. so I started to add stress coat to see if that would help but it didn't or it was to late.

Last night we had 4 left and I noticed that they were breathing rather heavy so I thought maybe the O2 was low so I added a battery air pump overnight to see if that helped but it didn't I woke up to 3 of the 4 dead.

The most odd thing that I have seen is it's just the Loaches 15 Cl and one yoyo. and the tank also has a small upsidedown cat small pleco and a roseline shark and they are all still doing fine.


can anyone tell me what I might have missed?

 

[JakeH]

Your ammo level was 1.5ppm AFTER the WC, which was 10 days AFTER the filter cleaning?! Jeez bro, who knows how high the ammo levels got during those 10 days... The 3 additional WC's may not help much after they've been exposed to that kind of ammo for that long. Go get a bottle of Prime & a bottle of Stability & get that bb back to normal.

 

[koop171]

Your ammo level was 1.5ppm AFTER the WC, which was 10 days AFTER the filter cleaning?! Jeez bro, who knows how high the ammo levels got during those 10 days... The 3 additional WC's may not help much after they've been exposed to that kind of ammo for that long. Go get a bottle of Prime & a bottle of Stability & get that bb back to normal.

Damage is done now I lost the last loach today.

Went from around 20 fish to 3 in less then a week.

 

[redinfinity]

Ouch. Sorry for your loss. Be careful with those filter cleanings. If the ammonia got that high then you definitely killed off the bb. You shouldn't have to replace bio-media, cause if you do, you also remove the bb. Then you'll see an ammonia spike like what happened with your tank.

In my AC110 I keep nothing but biomax (Aquaclear) for a 60 gallon with 12 loaches 3"-6" + a buttload of other fishes. You really don't need anything else.

Well, lesson learned.

 

[JakeH]

Yup...You live & you learn. Especially in this hobby! I always try to run a 2nd filter of some kind, even if its much smaller, so the BB aren't wiped out every time I clean. The main filter in each of my tanks is cleaned every 2 weeks & the "supplemental" filters are cleaned at least a week later to avoid the dreaded mini-cycle.

 

[TheLoachGuy]

So sad to hear about your loss.

I had the impression since I was a successfull fish keeper of many moons who had not had a fish kill-off in years I could buy some fish from Walzmart. I found a tank with 10 baby clownloaches for $5.84 a pop and bought the lot of them. Threw them in a tank and 2 weeks later everything in that tank came down with the most massive outbreak of ICK I had seen in 10 years. It killed every baby loach I had and all but 2 of the rest of the occupants.

I agree with the ammonia spike diagnosis for your problem.

Live and learn for real!