Today I have re-enforced an age old adage in fish keeping that every fish keeper has experienced, but is easy to forget and blame ourselves: stuff happens.
This may seem like a pointless story, but it's nice to be reminded that in aquariums, and any form of husbandry; we simply can't be in control of everything.
On a 20gL by my bar, I have a simple community tank that serves no purpose but decorations. Cool little aquascaping using decorations that I had no other use for (admit it, you have them sitting in a box somewhere!), with a few plants and simple fish: baby clown loach (he was growing out, until I could acclimate him to a new tank), couple of florida flag fish, and some assorted tetras.
A few days ago, a tetra died after a water change. Checked chlorine, good. Added chloramine agent and checked ammonia, good. Chocked it up to fish die sometimes. A few days later, about half are floating. Checked all water parameters, good to go. I didn't have any meds on hand, so I didn't treat. Today, all that lasts is one Florida Flag Fish (it's a I Am Legend sort of situation) and all other fish died with NO discernible water problems (checked temp, pH, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, TDS, kH, gH, chlorine and even lead (don't joke, I had a wipeout by some stray lead leach into the water system about a year ago)).
I beat myself thinking for a reason, because there were NO symptoms. The tank is empty, the flag fish in a 10g quarantine with some giant danios (testing the water so to speak), and the rest of the tanks contents discarded with the tank being sanitized.
After a while I came to the conclusion, sometimes we just never know. If I had an MRI and a score of other tests run on the fish, then maybe I could find an answer. For the average aquarist: the big guy just decided it was their time.
This may seem like a pointless story, but it's nice to be reminded that in aquariums, and any form of husbandry; we simply can't be in control of everything.
On a 20gL by my bar, I have a simple community tank that serves no purpose but decorations. Cool little aquascaping using decorations that I had no other use for (admit it, you have them sitting in a box somewhere!), with a few plants and simple fish: baby clown loach (he was growing out, until I could acclimate him to a new tank), couple of florida flag fish, and some assorted tetras.
A few days ago, a tetra died after a water change. Checked chlorine, good. Added chloramine agent and checked ammonia, good. Chocked it up to fish die sometimes. A few days later, about half are floating. Checked all water parameters, good to go. I didn't have any meds on hand, so I didn't treat. Today, all that lasts is one Florida Flag Fish (it's a I Am Legend sort of situation) and all other fish died with NO discernible water problems (checked temp, pH, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, TDS, kH, gH, chlorine and even lead (don't joke, I had a wipeout by some stray lead leach into the water system about a year ago)).
I beat myself thinking for a reason, because there were NO symptoms. The tank is empty, the flag fish in a 10g quarantine with some giant danios (testing the water so to speak), and the rest of the tanks contents discarded with the tank being sanitized.
After a while I came to the conclusion, sometimes we just never know. If I had an MRI and a score of other tests run on the fish, then maybe I could find an answer. For the average aquarist: the big guy just decided it was their time.
