Disaster Strikes -- and kills all my Synodontis alberti

[Scleropages]

This past Saturday night, my wife and I got home late after a fun party with friends. When we got inside, we heard what sounded like a waterfall. Turns out, my 125gal tank had sprung a fast leak from the bottom front seam. So, I quickly got to work siphoning the water into rubbermaid garbage cans that I only use for my fish/aquariums, putting the fish in the cans, removing everything else from the tank, and then setting up heaters and temporary filtration/aeration in the cans.

I put my pair of breeding Uaru and two non-aggressive angelfish in one can. I put one aggressive angelfish, 3 red-finned loaches, and 6 S. alberti in the other. One airstone and one powerhead powered sponge filter per can.

I contacted Perfecto and put in a warranty claim--thankfully, I bought one of their stands with the tank and am covered under the 20-year warranty. The new tank should be delivered to my LFS this Friday.

In the meantime, the fish in the cans have been doing okay up until today. Temp has been normal (80-82 deg F) and I've done two 10% water changes--one on Sunday and one last night. When I got home for lunch to check on them today, I peeked into the Uaru's can and everything was good. I then looked in the other can and quickly felt like I got punched in the gut.



Everything in there died except the angelfish. My losses in all:



I'm pretty sure the cause of death is low oxygen and/or ammonia. I have to admit, I could not use my hang-on-back power filters on the cans. If I had some canister filters on the tank, I could have continued to use them on the cans. Not sure if it would have prevented this, but I'm sure it would've been a better option than what I was able to set up on such short notice.

[MatsP]

So sad. That was a nice group of S. alberti too. And I agree, your fish probably suffered from ammonia poisoning (I'm basing this on a guess, not on anything in particular visible in the pictures).

--
Mats

[Birger]

Ouch... it looks like they were getting to be a good size

[Cory_lover]

oh no!!!! so sorry for your loss, scleropages

[Scleropages]

Thanks for the replies. Birger, the biggest one was 6" long from head to tail.

I did a 25% water change immediately after taking those pics and then I had to get back to the office. I just tested the ammonia (~5 hours later) and it is at 0ppm. Going to check the pH and temp with another thermometer next.

I used to do aquarium maintenence for a living for about 4 years and I'm thankful I never had such bad luck with any of my clients.

[Scleropages]

pH: 6.5
temp: 80 deg F

Pretty much the same conditions as were in the tank. Actually, I kept the temp a little higher at 82-84 deg F... the Uaru do better at that temp--I would add slightly cooler water after a water change to intiate a big spawn. I don't think a 2-4 deg F drop over the course of a few days would hurt. If anything, it would help increase disolved oxygen.

BTW, when I took the draw for ammonia, I took it from the bottom of the can--where you would expect it to be higher.

WTF?!?!

[Carp37]

Sorry for your loss- they were very nice fish. I'd suspect low dissolved oxygen levels are more likely to be the cause of everything dropping dead pretty much at once.

[MatsP]

As the result of the test shows no ammonia, I'd agree with carp37, it's probably low oxygen - a contributing factor may well be that the tub you are keeping the fish in is fairly tall and narrow - so there isn't much surface area. Adding an airstone to the setup will help circulate the water, thus allowing more water to be in contact with the air at the surface [and add new air, so that the carbon dioxide that is slightly heavier than air, doesn't form a "lid" on top of the water].

--
Mats

[Bas Pels]

BTW, when I took the draw for ammonia, I took it from the bottom of the can--where you would expect it to be higher.

As ammonia dissolves very well in water, the concentration in the top, and bottom, layers will hardly be influenced by specific gravity.

Differences in concentration are worked against in nature, and these forces are quite strong. I think if you would dissolve 1000 kg of ammoniak in 100.000 liters of water, and put this in a 'tank' 50 meters high, the differences in conctentration in the to cm and bottom cm will be less then 0,001 %

[andywoolloo]

very sad

[Carp37]

I had a similar, though less traumatic experience, when I was at University- some stone loaches I was temporarily keeping in a bucket died when the compressed air in the University failed (or was turned off) over the weekend. I also lost 3 large cyprinids last year in my main tank when the temperature rocketed and a filter partially clogged, but that's down more to bad husbandry than bad luck.

[Richard B]

Tough break - sorry for your losses - alberti are a super fish

[L number Banana]

Sorry for your loss, they were beauties.
Could there have been any residue of some sort in the container?

[corybrummie2010]

Sorry to hear your losses of these beautiful fish

[Scleropages]

Thanks for the sympathies. I doubt there was any residue in the containers. When storing them, they are kept covered with the lids in my garage. I also rinsed them out with hot water then cold water before I siphoned the water into them from the leaking tank.

I still think it was low oxygen levels that did it. I had put the lid on top of the garbage can--slightly askew--so that there would be less light (stress) and so the loaches would have less of an opportunity to jump out. It was definitely not sealed tight. But, it probably didn't help.

What I found interesting about all this is that they were doing fine in the garbage cans for at least 48 hours before they all kicked the bucket in the one can. Like I've mentioned in other posts here, that angelfish that was with them was nasty. Probably evil. He had previously ate the eyes out of another angelfish. He was still alive when everything else in the can died. I wonder if he killed them all. Angelfish voodoo. Kidding! Haha!

[Viktor Jarikov]

My one story may be similar. At some point, I switched from hang-ons to ((oversize/overpower 200 gph)) Marineland canister filters on my two 27 gal tanks. My better half complained about the noise from the air pumps before, so I thought with such a powerfull and well directed, adjustable water flow I should not need air bubblers in the tanks. BIG MISTAKE. Some fish dealt better with being deprived of proper concentration of oxygen but ~1/3 died overnight, including several very dear ones, like Syno angelicus and giraffe cats... I did not see any obvious symptoms right away, like within several hours - to half a day. But now, I remember some fish changed color for much paler and in some, the color patterns almost disappeared.... meaning stress. Unknowingly, I have done similar things before where the fish had been on oxygen fast for months. Again, some did not make it and now, I have a very good guess why.

My lesson: It is very important to mix the water from the very bottom to the top. I added the bubblers to the two 27 gal tanks, of course, but also I added one more air pump to the existing air line with 5 bubblers in my indoor pond and added a bubbler to 150 gal and to 55 gal (albeit 55 gal tank already had a small bubbler in one corner. I even added two deep water Whisper AP 300 bubblers to my koi pond outside.