Please help me answer the mystery

[mcsully]

Today I arrived home from a 4 day trip. As soon as I came in the room I smelled something funny (thought it might be the cat). Second thing I do is walked over to my 60 gallon tank and noticed every fish was dead except my
Leporinus, Red Tail Botia.
I quickly called the LFS and discovered the fish I just bought are two days past "warranty".. After taking out all the dead fish (and there was a film on them so it must have happened the day I left or the day after). I did a 30% water change. Two hours later I lost a red Tail Botia and my Leporinus is kinda just hidding..

WHat should I do? What do you think happened?

 

[lostnconfused]

did you run ammonia, nitrite and nitrate tests on your tank??? If not, do that, or if you dont have a kit, either buy one (their good to have, the test tube kind, not the dipstick kind) or go to lfs and have them test your water. Maybe that will answer some questions

 

[FroggyFox]

If a fish died the ammonia in your tank would probably start going up pretty quickly. If more than one died...then its kind of like a chain reaction. Not to mention if the fish died because of some type of disease...then it could have been something fast spreading, you never know.

Sorry to hear about your losses...but until you can figure out what happened or do some big water changes and make sure the surviving fish is ok I would NOT add any fish to the tank. Be sure you found all of the dead ones, and do water tests on your tank to be sure the nitrite/nitrate/ammonia levels are all as close to 0 as possible.

 

[mcsully]

Guys thank you for the quick response, I should have started I did do tests (i'm tired and a little upset so not thinking straight)
The tests came back as
Ammonia : 0
Nitrite .5
Nitrate 20


Checked under all the hiding places and found the bodies.. Hardiest part was seeing my Golden Nugget under the Driftwood dead.. I loved that guy

 

[mcsully]

I should add that a visual inspection of the Leporinus and I don't see any injuries or sign of sickness.. He looks healthy..

 

[FroggyFox]

Understandable.

Um...the .5 nitrites is probably from the deaths...OR I've noticed if there's a bunch of gunk in the gravel and you dont do enough gravel vacuuming then that nitrite level is going to stick at a pesky .25 or .5

I think I'd probably do a nice thorough tank cleaning....

 

[mcsully]

Already ahead of you I spent the past 2 hours cleaning the sucker..
Some dirty some places but overall in good shape. My tank has clear water.. Not crystal but clear.. No murk

 

[FroggyFox]

awesome After letting everything settle did you do that nitrite test again?

 

[mcsully]

my Nitrites are still high, .50
Should I change the water again? At this point I'd be 50% water change

 

[lostnconfused]

Did you find out what killed the fish? I was just wondering for my personal knowledge, just in case something like that were to happen to me...

 

[Seleya]

Jeez, Mcsully, sorry to hear about this. How did you leave your tank when you went away? Did someone feed for you or did you leave a block feeder in the tank? Were there injuries on the bodies (I see you still have the leporinus)?

I agree with Froggy about the probability of the nitrites spiking due to the deaths. It really is a chain reaction when something goes south in our glass boxes -- the kids (my nieces) found their plec dead this morning and I found the female sword stuck to their filter intake, obviously dead-er; they both were alive as recently as a day or two ago. Water quality had plummeted so we had to do some serious water changes and try to get all the floaties from the sword's body out of the tank before the rest of the inhabitants succumbed.

Try to go over all care and conditions up to your arrival home. You may never know what set it off but you just may find the clue to your riddle.

 

[mcsully]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Its very upsetting after spending all this time and not knowing what happened.. Worst part about it is not knowing how to avoid it.
20 Minutes ago I did a water change. Went under every stone and cave I had (now the tank is a mess )Took out about another 10 gallons. I just redid my tests and still have .50.. Going back when I did my first tests, It looks the same.

Going back for the past 3 days before leaving I changed their food schedule. Instead of giving 4 pinches @ 8pm. I have 2 pinches @ 10am and 2 pinches @ 8pm. Same amt of food but just breaking it up.

My 20 gallon tank looks awesome. Test reading came back really good. Only issue is my pleco (common) color is a little dull.. Now I'm getting nervous on him

Good news is that my friend gave me a 55 gallon tank so I cleaned that out, took 5 gallons of water from my 20 gallon and starting the cycle process

 

[mcsully]

Good news and a question.. Apparently 1 of the botia's have made it. It, likethe leporinus is really hidding (more than normal).. But I noticed my driftwood has some "film" on it. I removed it just to be safe..

The driftwood has been in for 10 days.. Could have that caused an issue?

Lastly Seleya you and I were talking in another thread
http://www.myfishtank.net/forum/showthread.php?t=34643&highlight=high+nitrite
and my nitrite went up a little and it either caused a fish to die which whacked the entire population (then causing the nitrite to raise .50) or my nitrite is just rising (which I can't figure out why, especially now that the fish tank has been water changed by 50%).

Thanks!