I think I killed my Betta

[Frozenspokes]

Every thing was going fine with my Betta until yesterday. I had a bit of an algea problem that I had let go too long and felt that I needed to take action on. The algea wasn't causing any stress to the Betta or the one mistery snail in the 10 gallon tank, but it was just looking a bit shabby.

I pulled the fake plants and plastic sunken ship that were covered in algea out and proceded to clean them in the kitchen sink. I washed them down using dishwashing soap. I then set them in clean water to rinse. After everything was clean, I placed the items back into the tank.

A few hours later, I noticed that the betta was stuck in the filter intake. I immediately shut off the filter and he was able to pull himself away but only drifted down to the bottom of the tank. He showed no signs of any common diseases, but was obviously very ill. I set up a QT and moved him to it. I tested the water in the tank, and came up with the following numbers.

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20

In spite of those numbers, I decided to do a MWC I changed about 95% of the water in the tank. I rinsed the filter out in aquarium water also. The only water that was not changed was the water in the gravel and in the filter. I also decided to removed the two fake plants and plastic ship from the tank.

I put the betta back in as he seemed to have stabilized in the QT. It wasn't long before he was back in the filter intake. But this time unable to free himself. I again moved him to the QT where he eventually passed this evening. My ten year old will take this pretty hard. He was her favorite fish.

So, here are my questions.

Should I drain the tank again and clean it out some special way before adding any new fish? I don't want to harm any other fish, but I would like to get another one to replace this poor fish in hopes of easing the pain a bit for my daughter.

If I don't have to drain the tank, will the biofilter still be OK now? It has gone for over 24 hours with nothing more than the snail. And I had him in the QT for awhile also as I was afraid that whatever was making the betta ill may make it ill too.

If the tank is a wash? would I be risking the fish in my 55 gallon if I were to move the one live plant from the 10 gallon to the 55 gallon tank?

The snail is in the tank now and acting it's normal self.

Sorry about being so long winded.

Shiggy RIP

 

[Seleya]

What likely happened is you didn't get all of the soap off the plants. Soap leaves a pretty persistant residue and can be incredibly toxic to fish as you have seen. Since the plants were only in the tank briefly, you can try to really flush the tank with (dechlored) water changes to try to save the biofilter or tear the tank down, rinse everything out thoroughly and start over. Since the snail is still alive, the amount of toxin was probably pretty small but your betta would have been the one to swim near/around the plants when you added them back into the tank, so he probably got a good snoutful before it dipersed in the water. The one live plant should be safe but you can certainly rinse it off a bit before adding it to your 55.

If you need to clean algae off ornaments, wiping usually works well, as does plain bleach. Soap really should never be used on fish equipment. Sorry for your loss.

 

[MissFishy]

When you "set them in clean water" you didn't get the soap off. Setting something to soak in clean water won't get soap off, constant rinsing does. I agree with Seleya, never use soap on anything going into your fish tank. I prefer just wiping under running tap water. You will probably need to make sure every bit of soap residue is out of the tank before you add something else to it. You have to be the judge of how much soap residue got into the tank...if it's a lot, I would just tear it down, rinse rinse rinse and start over.

 

[Frozenspokes]

I had rinsed the plants twice before putting them back in. Once under running water, and then I let them soak for a bit. The plants were made of some sort of fabric so I think that they probably held onto the soap and then released it into the tank. They are now in the trash.

I think that I will do one more MWC before putting any other fish in that tank. I wish that I had known the soap thing before