Well I came home from work and all but 1 fish was dead in my 30 gallon brichardi tank. I had about 40 or so quarter inc long fry and the 2 adults. the female is the only survivor. I checked ammonia and nitrites. ammonia was at about 5ppm nitrites were 0. ammonia could be from all the fish rotting for however many hours. no idea what happened but the tank is now toast. going to have to redo the whole tank. I was planning on getting rid of the fry on Saturday for my lfs to use as feeders. guess not now. and I already planned to spend about 100 at my lfs then too. guess I need to plan for 2 tanks to be restocked. I've never had a freshwater die off like this before.
Disaster!
- Thread starter exhumed07
- Start date
What were the latest actual readings (before the massive die off) of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate since you check every 2 or 3 days?
The dead fish will certainly add to the ammonia level, but even if left in the tank 24 hours, I don't see how you'd have a reading of 5ppm if you started out at zero. What test kit do you use?
The dead fish will certainly add to the ammonia level, but even if left in the tank 24 hours, I don't see how you'd have a reading of 5ppm if you started out at zero. What test kit do you use?
I use api and last reading was about 2 days before. ammonia and nitrites were 0 nitrites were around 30 since water changes are hard with a tank full of fry. I tested the water with nothing in it for a day and ammonia is at 0 so I don't think there was a mysterious bacteria die off. and heater is fine. always steady at 80 degrees. and power didn't go out or my alarm would have been flashing and tv would have been on when I got home. its just wired. I had my salt tank die the same way. went to bed with everything fine. woke up and the tank was a cloudy mess and everything was dead. just this time the tank was not cloudy. just don't get how this happened.
i'm the only one who does anything in the room the tanks are in and i don't use chemicals or anything around my tanks. i'm really unsure. i put a couple guppies in the tank just out of curiousity and they are doing just fine and one of the females dropped fry and the fry are doing fine. i never changed out the water or anything. if they had died i was just going to give them to my sunfish since thats what i do with them anyway. i'm completly stumped as to what happened.
well capslock i belive i found out that it was a heater issue after all. i did water changes and top offs tonight and well i topped off the 30 gallon that all the fish died in. the few guppies i tossed in the tank about a week ago started going nuts and a couple started to quiver and sank to the bottom of the tank. i thought maybe my water was to cold or something but when i placed my hand in the water it felt like a 9 volt battery on my hand. i quickly unplugged everything and started looking around. well i noticed the top of my visitherm stealth heater had a gap between it and the housing. i just touched it and the top of it moved freely. and it also came off easily. bingo problem found. my poor fish got electricuted due to a heater shorting out. i must say it is rathe upsetting that something like that happened. i've always had good luck with visitherm heaters. but this was the only stealth heater i had. i belive i will be buying a regular glass heater for that tank.
You may want to check with Marineland (customer service number 800-526-0650 or 800-432-6986) to see if your heater was one that they recalled.
"Marineland has issued a voluntary withdrawal of the Stealth PRO Submersible Heater (100, 200 and 250 watt). The product is being withdrawn due to a quality issue. "
"Marineland has issued a voluntary withdrawal of the Stealth PRO Submersible Heater (100, 200 and 250 watt). The product is being withdrawn due to a quality issue. "
exhumed, does your hair look like my avatar now? BzzzzzzzzzTTT!
Seriously though, I've often wondered about that with aquarium heaters, especially the ones you see today where the whole thing is submersed, including part of the power cord. Hard to believe they don't have GFCI's on them (I realize you could add one if you wanted to). It doesn't take anything for current to leak directly into the water. Most tanks you'd probably fall downward and out of the water, but YIKES! It takes little/nothing to get electrocuted in a water bath type situation.
Seriously though, I've often wondered about that with aquarium heaters, especially the ones you see today where the whole thing is submersed, including part of the power cord. Hard to believe they don't have GFCI's on them (I realize you could add one if you wanted to). It doesn't take anything for current to leak directly into the water. Most tanks you'd probably fall downward and out of the water, but YIKES! It takes little/nothing to get electrocuted in a water bath type situation.
I also kinda worry about that. i mean one little flaw allowing water to enter and everything gets fried. one odd thing was I have everything plugged into a power strip with a built in breaker. and it didn't draw enough power to trip that breaker. i'm sure u have put a 9volt battery on your tongue, thats what it felt like through my hand. so i'm just guessing it was around 12 volts is what i was feeling. i've been zapped by 110 and 220 as well as electric fences lol. this was just mildly annoying for me. obviously leathal to my fish though.
Yep, I test 9V's like that on occasion.
Been shocked 120-220 and blew up a few screw drivers and pliers as well.
That is frightening though. We have to go thru safety training constantly at work. There's one vid we had to watch where a young fella was washing/vacuuming his car. He simply put his finger on the on/off switch of his shop-vac while standing on the wet driveway. Got zapped enough to stop his heart. Fell right over and died. His mom was videoing him because he was leaving for college.
Been shocked 120-220 and blew up a few screw drivers and pliers as well.That is frightening though. We have to go thru safety training constantly at work. There's one vid we had to watch where a young fella was washing/vacuuming his car. He simply put his finger on the on/off switch of his shop-vac while standing on the wet driveway. Got zapped enough to stop his heart. Fell right over and died. His mom was videoing him because he was leaving for college.
