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Pet Forum / Aquaria / Goldfish / June 2005Death of all goldfish over a week
We are a secondary school, with a tank of coldwater fish in our lobby. They have always been happy and healthy with no problems, over the weekend of the 30th april we lost 4 of our goldfish and one of our loaches - they were just floating on the surface on the tuesday morning. The remaining fish were looking less lively than normal but were interested in food. The shoal minnows (no idea of their real names) were lively and as per normal. Over the course of the week we have since lost all of our remaining goldfish and our other loach - they've not really recovered and have been sitting on the bottom of the aquarium unless it's feeding time when they come up. We've cleaned the filter twice during the week and there is no obvious foreign body in the water. The tank is large and has a lot of vegetation - it's been a couple of months since we last added new fish, these came from somewhere reputable and were the last to die. Our first thought was that something had been put in the tank, either via accident or malice, but I can't work out why these minnows would not have been affected too. I've been though the websites for common fish diseases and can't find anything which matches the symtoms. A couple seem to have either lost their dorsal fins or were keeping them flat against the body, but not all. Also if it was fin-rot it came on out of nowhere and was very suddenly fatal. Any ideas would be very welcome. andy Andy, How big was the tank in terms of litres or gallons, how many fish? Did you ever change any of the water? What were the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels. PH levels too? How did you clean the filters? > Andy, > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > How did you clean the filters? Thanks for answering! No idea what the literage is, but the dimensions are 120x40x35. It would have contained ~ 8 'goldfish' of varying sizes and ages, 2 loaches, and 4 of these minnows. It's been up and running in it's present form since around september, we moved it from another part of the school. We replace evaporation using distilled water we make on site as required. Don't know about nitrite and nitrate, but PH is 7 today. We clean the filters by taking it apart and flushing it under hot water till it is clean. It's one with two chambers of mesh with a central core of filter wool (if that makes any sense) - it was last cleaned fully around six weeks ago and was not particularly clogged after the sudden death of fish over the weekend. I had a good look at the fish which expired today, and apart from being slightly ragged round the dorsal fin they do not have any visible symptoms. What struck me was the suddeness of it, going from no visible sign of trouble on friday to large numbers of dead by tuesday. best wishes andy "We clean the filters by taking it apart and flushing it under hot water > till it is clean." You should never 'clean' a filter with hot water. What I suspect you have inadvertently done is killed all the friendly microbes the were living in the filter, so the filter was sterile. Filters work in two ways. 1. They mechanically remove solid dirt particles (or at least trap them) 2. They are home to thousands of micro organisms that eat the pollution from the fish and render the fish waste harmless. Hence these bacteria are good bacteria - and should be cared for accordingly. In future only rinse the filter in tepid water (icy cold water can kill them also, but not as much as hot water - which will eradicate 99% of the microbes). Rinse in clean aquarium water is best to maintain the harmony of the filter. So without those friendly bacteria 'eating' the fish waste, the water would have quickly become polluted - resulting in the death of all the fish. For the same reason when restocking the tank (clean the tank and remove all the water - you can use hot water to clean a fresh tank - just incase there's anything bad from the stressed and dying fish, living in the water) only introduce 1 or maybe 2 small fish to begin with. Only do this after the tank has been up and running for at least 2 weeks (with the filter running). The filter will take time to start working to maximum efficiency. Also it's worth pointing out - that the filter should be running 24hrs a day - to maintain the good bacteria in the filter. When you switch it off - the bacteria can't feed and die. **SS** > "We clean the filters by taking it apart and flushing it under hot water > [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] > > **SS** Thanks for your input on this SS - we do run the filter 24/7 so we're doing that right. I'm not sure where the beneificial bacteria would live in our filter (the filter is very coarse hard plastic with a large mesh size so there is nowhere for bacteria to thrive except in the core of white filter 'wool') but I'll use tepid next time. Also remember that the majority of fish died long before I cleaned the filter with hot water, but before it was seriously clogged; any ideas as to what might have caused this sudden initial death? Could you offer some suggestions as to why one species of fish all survived with no ill effects, while two others all died? If some species are more 'tender' then perhaps we should avoid these? Thanks again andy "andy smart" <anonymus@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote [snip] > Thanks for your input on this SS - we do run the filter 24/7 so we're > doing that right. I'm not sure where the beneificial bacteria would live > in our filter (the filter is very coarse hard plastic with a large mesh > size so there is nowhere for bacteria to thrive except in the core of > white filter 'wool') but I'll use tepid next time. If your tap water contains chlorine or chloramines any temperature will kill the useful bacteria. Filter material (the "wool") should be rinsed in water extracted from your aquarium during partial water changes. Some species can be more tolerant of poor water conditions but that doesn't mean they're healthy. I had a poorly maintained 10 gallon for awhile. The only species that survived was the Cory cats. But when I started to learn about nitrates etc., I found my nitrates were in excess of 50, sometimes to 100. So my poor Cories were barely surviving while everything else died. (My tanks now are well maintained.) I didn't read earlier posts, so I'm not sure if you've already done this, but the first step with suspicious fish deaths is to test the heck out of the water: pH, ammonia, nitrates, hardness. You might even call your local water company to find out if they changed anything recently with respect to water treatment. A switch from chlorine to chloramine, for example, can be deadly to fish if you're only treating chlorine. Sorry if you've already answered some of these points. I had a computer glitch and missed earlier posts. Gail >"andy smart" <anonymus@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote >[snip] [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] >to chloramine, for example, can be deadly to >fish if you're only treating chlorine. another really important point is that if you're only topping up rather than changing water, an awful lot of gack (especially with goldfish who produce a phenomenal amount of excrement) will build up in or on any substrate you have, which will eventually lead to a fairly poisonous environment. You need to get rid of this regularly; the easiest was is with a so called "gravel vacuum" which is a really cheap & simple device - a wide, rigid tube attached to a thin flexible piece of tubing - which siphons gack and water out of your tank with each water change.  Signaturesophie www.freewebs.com/fishstuff (under construction. ish.) (snip) "sophiefishstuff" <sophie-usenetNOSPAMTHANKYOU@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message > >I didn't read > > another really important point is that if you're only topping up rather > than changing water, an awful lot of gack (especially with goldfish who [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > - a wide, rigid tube attached to a thin flexible piece of tubing - which > siphons gack and water out of your tank with each water change. I had never heard the word "gack" until recently......is that the actual "poop" or some other waste that develops from the "poop"? Thanks, Tispe >(snip) >"sophiefishstuff" <sophie-usenetNOSPAMTHANKYOU@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] >I had never heard the word "gack" until recently......is that the actual >"poop" or some other waste that develops from the "poop"? um. it's a bit like "ick" or "yuck". in a goldfish tank, it's a combination of old excrement and any old food. and stuff. Signaturesophie www.freewebs.com/fishstuff (under construction. ish.) > Thanks for your input on this SS - we do run the filter 24/7 so we're > doing that right. I'm not sure where the beneificial bacteria would live > in our filter (the filter is very coarse hard plastic with a large mesh > size so there is nowhere for bacteria to thrive except in the core of > white filter 'wool') but I'll use tepid next time. The bacteria live on every surface in your tank and in your filter. I rinse mine in the water I took from the tank for a water change. Nothing else. Pardon me if I'm wrong, but when you said in one post that you didn't know what the nitrate level was, I got the impression you weren't an aquarium expert :-). Please do some reading on maintaining your aquarium. And DON'T trust the local fish store. Some are OK, but a lot have underpaid and ignorant employees while others are only interested in selling all they can. Try your local library. Good luck. SignatureBNSF = Build Now, Seep Forever > Pardon me if I'm wrong, but when you said in one post that you didn't > know what the nitrate level was, I got the impression you weren't an > aquarium expert :-). No offence taken, the two of us who do this are the head science tecnician and myself, school network manager! Andy, You need to get some more test equipment. The school should be able to purchase them relatively inexpensively, but you need a test kit that does pH, KH, GH, nitrites and maybe nitrates. The nitrates are the least of any problem in an aquarium eco-system. The thing that a lot of people forget is that in the cycling processes of a tank they biobug also consume the materials that makeup the carbonate hardness and also use the trace elements. It is possible that since you are topping off the tank with distilled water that you eco-system now has very soft water, which is determental to Goldfish. You never mentioned the temps you were keeping the tank at, but loaches and not cold water fish they come from the areas around Borneo, Malaysia, etc. and temps very seldom get below 70 degrees in their environment. In any event, the KH, GH and trace elements are important to the tanks well being. Also I would like to point out that most loaches like softer, more acid water, while Goldfish like a more alkaline (higher pH) environment and harder water, your fish are really not compatible. The loaches may live in your environment that you have created but that does not mean that they like it or do well in it. Part of this problem, at the moment, that I see is the fact that you are topping of this large tank with distilled water which means no mineral content is in the water at all. One other point, I figured that your dimensions were in centimeters since you referenced the size of your tank in liters, but in any event, if it is about a 40 gallon tank your environment is overstocked with fish. Hope you get this cleared up. Tanks in schools can be so good for the children. Tom L.L. ---------------------------------------------------- >> Pardon me if I'm wrong, but when you said in one post that you didn't >> know what the nitrate level was, I got the impression you weren't an >> aquarium expert :-). > > No offence taken, the two of us who do this are the head science > tecnician and myself, school network manager! Thanks for your input Tom The loaches have been growing and thriving for about 3 years (they must have quadrupled in size since we put them in) so I think they were happy there. We're going to look into some more testing, and your point about softening of the water was interesting too. Perhaps something to harden the water wouldn't go amiss for us then? We've got a PH in there which is just about neutral right now. The thing which really perplexed us was the very sudden downhill slide from all the damn fish being happy and healthy; they'd been together in that tank for over six months, swimming and eating like there was no tomorrow - we'd really like to know what caused it to deteriorate so fast. My dimesions were in inches if I remember: that tank is WAY more than 40 gallons given the number of buckets it takes to fill it! ta andy > Andy, > [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] >>No offence taken, the two of us who do this are the head science >>tecnician and myself, school network manager! http://www.mu.edu/~buxtoni/puregold/disease/disease.htm This is a great link for more detailed information. The "Dandy Orandas" web site has very gorgeous and $$$$$ fish. If they don't know how to care for goldfish, nobody does. The site will help you look at your maintenance issues and discover what went wrong. As a novice I've made every mistake in the books. Just like you, I had a no-problems setup for over a year. Then I added one new ill fish and the whole system collapsed! I lost all the goldfish, but the white clouds survived. Understanding how goldies pollute their environment and knowing what to do about it will make a huge difference. Good luck. nan "We clean the filters by taking it apart and flushing it under hot water > till it is clean." You should never 'clean' a filter with hot water. What I suspect you have inadvertently done is killed all the friendly microbes the were living in the filter, so the filter was sterile. Filters work in two ways. 1. They mechanically remove solid dirt particles (or at least trap them) 2. They are home to thousands of micro organisms that eat the pollution from the fish and render the fish waste harmless. Hence these bacteria are good bacteria - and should be cared for accordingly. In future only rinse the filter in tepid water (icy cold water can kill them also, but not as much as hot water - which will eradicate 99% of the microbes). Rinse in clean aquarium water is best to maintain the harmony of the filter. So without those friendly bacteria 'eating' the fish waste, the water would have quickly become polluted - resulting in the death of all the fish. For the same reason when restocking the tank (clean the tank and remove all the water - you can use hot water to clean a fresh tank - just incase there's anything bad from the stressed and dying fish, living in the water) only introduce 1 or maybe 2 small fish to begin with. Only do this after the tank has been up and running for at least 2 weeks (with the filter running). The filter will take time to start working to maximum efficiency. Also it's worth pointing out - that the filter should be running 24hrs a day - to maintain the good bacteria in the filter. When you switch it off - the bacteria can't feed and die. **SS** Ok another point, just topping off evaporated water is not enough. When you fish give off waste, this is released as ammonia, your friendly bacteria in your filter media will turn this to nitrites and other friendly bacteria in your filter turn nitrites to nitrates. Nitrates need to be diluted out of the water, preferably before they exceed 40ppm. When Nitrate gets high, it becomes more lethal the higher it gets. |
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