Terrible news... mass death event :(

greenerinks

Giant Snakehead
MFK Member
Jan 6, 2014
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Shanghai, China
Today is a sad sad day... lost a bunch of my monster fish...

I feed my fish every other day as they are all large now. So last night I gave them a hefty meal and did not check until this noon time when I came downstairs to the living room to find a cloudy water disaster. Apparently the PVC hose connected to the filter pump got knocked off and the fish was without filtration and strong aeration for around 10 hours. Mind you, I've had power outages before so I know they can survive the 8-10hours without filtration etc.. however it looked like they all threw up whatever I fed them and it was all sitting on the bottom. The sharp ammonia spike eventually took the lives of the following beloved fish:

Salminus brasiliensis
Hoplias aimara
Hoplias mala/Australis (not sure)
Cichla temensis

They were all around 45-50cm range in size.. they were are all heavy hitters..

I was able to save the albino clown knife and ornate/endlicheri bichers.. currently just doing a full flush and rebooting the tank. Quite sad... :(

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tlindsey

Silver Tier VIP
MFK Member
Aug 6, 2011
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Ohio
Today is a sad sad day... lost a bunch of my monster fish...

I feed my fish every other day as they are all large now. So last night I gave them a hefty meal and did not check until this noon time when I came downstairs to the living room to find a cloudy water disaster. Apparently the PVC hose connected to the filter pump got knocked off and the fish was without filtration and strong aeration for around 10 hours. Mind you, I've had power outages before so I know they can survive the 8-10hours without filtration etc.. however it looked like they all threw up whatever I fed them and it was all sitting on the bottom. The sharp ammonia spike eventually took the lives of the following beloved fish:

Salminus brasiliensis
Hoplias aimara
Hoplias mala/Australis (not sure)
Cichla temensis

They were all around 45-50cm range in size.. they were are all heavy hitters..

I was able to save the albino clown knife and ornate/endlicheri bichers.. currently just doing a full flush and rebooting the tank. Quite sad... :(

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Sorry for your loss
 

kno4te

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Sorry for tour loss.
 

Hendre

Bawitius
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Jan 14, 2016
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Wow that's terrible! :(
 

greenerinks

Giant Snakehead
MFK Member
Jan 6, 2014
800
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144
Shanghai, China
It's such a pity... they were all very healthy too.. I do WCs twice a week with only two feedings in between. I guess this is what happens when there is rotting food that they've thrown up sitting there while not having filtration/ enough aeration. Gotta clear my head for a little bit..
 

nzafi

Goliath Tigerfish
MFK Member
Mar 14, 2008
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USA
How long did you have these guys for? Had to have been a couple years. I believe you also had one of the rare verified brasis.

This is why my next tank build is going to have double redundancy. Multiple filters, heaters, etc to minimize the likelihood of something like this happening.
 
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moe214

Goliath Tigerfish
MFK Member
Oct 13, 2014
5,332
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Man green, that's gotta be tough, to have grown them all as well, I know I'd be devistated if I lost my curupira. I'm surprised the hoplias didn't survive and the bichirs did, I'd had an ammonia spike once and my wolf I had at the time lived through it where as my bichirs of the time perished. Goes to show everyone's experience is different.
 
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xraycer

Arapaima
MFK Member
Sep 5, 2013
5,383
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Southern NH USA
Man, what a loss!

Because those are heavy hitters, that tank was probably working at a max capacity with little room for error. So, a loss of filtration (and oxygenation) fairly quickly fouled the water and becoming a toxic soup.
 
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