Emergency all my fish dying

[MnFish1]

It’s actually all in my first post

You did not post all of the asked for parameters - pH Alkalinity, etc. Adding 20% new water intuitively - would not create a disaster - unless 1. Chlorine/chloraime (you added stuff for that - so I am not sure). 2. Oxygen - should have been an immediate problem - UNLESS you added too much conditioner. 3. Hydrogensulfide - after stirring up the sand - - unless you have a 4-5 inch sand-bed undisturbed for years unlikely.

So - You asked people here - yet - I'm not sure we know the pH of your tank - or the brand of salt you were/are using, etc etc etc etc. No - offense - if you want to believe its chlorine or chloramine - thats fine -its not unreasonable - I would suggests its about a 50% chance. So the goal of pressing you to dig deeper is to prevent it from happening again

 

[IslandLifeReef]

I agree with @MnFish1. While you may have found the issue, you may not have. You did two things to your tank to fix it, increase the oxygen in the water, and added chemicals to remove chlorine.

If this happened because of a 20% water change, then I suspect something else at play here. What do you use to measure salinity and do you calibrate it each time? If you do, how old is the calibration fluid?

 

[aggrofish]

Actually - there was recently a huge thread - about whether to use tap water or RODI - in another thread - IMHo - it totally depends on the water coming from your tap - copper levels, chlorine, etc etc. etc. To be safe - one should check with their water company - and most water detoxifiers will make tap water fine to use depending on the tank you're trying to have. I use my own made RODI. IMHO - you're making a broad statement - which does not apply to everyone.

Everyone can do what they want. If the OP wants to send water samples in to save $100 on a RODI system that’s up to him. My water is 450PPM TDS. I know when my DI is exhausted because I get a GHA outbreak even with parameters in check. I bought a water general RODI system 20 years ago and it’s going strong. Well worth the money IMO. I did not see the thread you mention but using tap is not something I would ever do or ever recommend. YMMV

 

[MnFish1]

Everyone can do what they want. If the OP wants to send water samples in to save $100 on a RODI system that’s up to him. My water is 450PPM TDS. I know when my DI is exhausted because I get a GHA outbreak even with parameters in check. I bought a water general RODI system 20 years ago and it’s going strong. Well worth the money IMO. I did not see the thread you mention but using tap is not something I would ever do or ever recommend. YMMV

Nor Did i. I use RODI. FYI - it was a poll out out by R2R FWIW. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/tap-tap-tap-come-on-be-honest-tap-water.760366/

It is a discussion thread - I'm not entirely convinced that Chlorine is the cause of the problem here. THOUGH - as I said - it could easily bet

 

[SilkySifaka]

It sounds like your tank is on the up now. FWIW I always run carbon to absorb potential toxins either introduced or from corals, and I use Seachem Prime for water treatment regardless if water is RODI or not. It’s the Swiss chess model of safety redundancies and their product has a cult following for good reason. Good luck.

 

[aggrofish]

Nor Did i. I use RODI. FYI - it was a poll out out by R2R FWIW. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/tap-tap-tap-come-on-be-honest-tap-water.760366/

It is a discussion thread - I'm not entirely convinced that Chlorine is the cause of the problem here. THOUGH - as I said - it could easily bet

It does seem strange. The only time I’ve had fish have a hard time breathing is during a bacterial bloom or sick where the latter they’ve been pulled and put in QT. I’m not sure a 20% water change is enough to change parameters so much that fish die. If I had to guess something got contaminated somehow.

 

[A Fish Called Wanda]

I’m sorry to hear that you’ve lost your fish. The main lesson in this hobby is to find your error which we’ve all have done and learn from it. My one BIg mistake when I first started in the hobby was that I would mix my salt in just a regular bucket all time. I never knew that I’m suppose to use a food quality grade buckets and pails when making RO and mixing the salt. Not knowing that this one particular time I did a RO salt water mix the bucket was releasing its toxins into the water.
Well after doing my 20% water change and topping off the water. My fish were dying with in a few days and my whole tank crashed. I just want to wish you luck in finding the cause on what happened…

 

[MnFish1]

It does seem strange. The only time I’ve had fish have a hard time breathing is during a bacterial bloom or sick where the latter they’ve been pulled and put in QT. I’m not sure a 20% water change is enough to change parameters so much that fish die. If I had to guess something got contaminated somehow.

I actually did the calculation - the maximum allowed Chlorine in tap water is 4 ppm. Assume a 20% change that would mean 0.8 ppm. This level would be lethal to most fish - which Is why I thought its possible. The wild card - is 1) was the neutralizer dosed correctly 2) was the neutralizer 'functional' (I e expired, etc) 3) Were chloramines also added (or another chemical. by the water company).

 

[davidcalgary29]

I actually did the calculation - the maximum allowed Chlorine in tap water is 4 ppm. Assume a 20% change that would mean 0.8 ppm. This level would be lethal to most fish - which Is why I thought its possible. The wild card - is 1) was the neutralizer dosed correctly 2) was the neutralizer 'functional' (I e expired, etc) 3) Were chloramines also added (or another chemical. by the water company).

"Edmonton -- does your tap water smell like chlorine? It's just spring run-off season".

Chlorine is added to the water year-round to disinfect and kill any harmful bacteria, but a higher dose is added at this time of year because some of it gets consumed by material in the water, Craik said.

 

[MnFish1]

"Edmonton -- does your tap water smell like chlorine? It's just spring run-off season".

Yes - I mentioned that also. In our area - after the snow melts - there are often several days when if you turn on the water from the tap - it smells like algae literally (like from a pond) lol. But - according to our water system - they never increase over 4 ppm (I I tried to use the worse case scenario) - BUT - its exactly the reason unless you know exactly what they are doing and when - its best to use RODI water, BTW - Canadian Provinces may have different regulations - and even from city to city here the rules they may do different things

 

[Malcontent]

Last week on r*ddit, two people complained of their fish dying after a 20% water change. Both were using the same water conditioning product.

It seems mathematically impossible unless the water conditioner was doing nothing.

 

[MnFish1]

Last week on r*ddit, two people complained of their fish dying after a 20% water change. Both were using the same water conditioning product.

It seems mathematically impossible unless the water conditioner was doing nothing.

I don't understand what is mathematically impossible? BTW - I think I know what you're saying - and I think I agree its unlikely - depending on the amount of chlorine/chloramine that 'could' have been added by the water company and the effectiveness of the product (neutralizer)

 

[ying yang]

I don’t see on here where you posted your water parameters. We need to know what your ammonia, nitrite, temperature, and salinity are. Any one of those will kill your fish. If those are fine, ensure there is oxygen being but in the water by surface agitation.

The quote you posted from op,had the few basic parameters you asked for a few times.
So here they are for yourself and others .

To the op,hope your remaining fish are acting better than the other day.
Are they doing ok still?

 

[aggrofish]

It seems like we have more questions than answers? How long did you mix the salt? Did you use the same amount of dechlorinator as usual? was this a new batch of salt? Is there a possibility anything got into the container you used to mix the water? Did you bring the tap water up to temp by sticking a heater in there? How are the remaining fish?

 

[Geekrock84]

thank you for your comments. I will do that from now on… I didn’t have my own car but my new car is arriving this month… I’ll do biweekly trips to Walmart for roid water …

Honestly, it's probably cheaper in the long run to get a RODI system, Here's one for $70. It'll be slow but you'll have the ability to make your own RODI water at home. It's basically the most essential requirement of owning a salt water tank.

 

[davidcalgary29]

Honestly, it's probably cheaper in the long run to get a RODI system, Here's one for $70. It'll be slow but you'll have the ability to make your own RODI water at home. It's basically the most essential requirement of owning a salt water tank.

I hate to do this, but I am going to very respectfully disagree unless the aquarium is 15g or less. I bought one of these in January 2021, and it was fine up until it just really wasn't. This thing is SLOW, and I found that I needed to replace most of the individual stages at the six-month mark, as sediments increased pretty rapidly at that point. Most of Alberta has hard water, and if you don't have a water softener, this thing silts and limes up pretty quickly.

And it's actually cheaper in Canada to buy an entirely new unit than it is to replace all of the individual cartridges of the RO Buddie, and the membrane in itself is pretty pricey. They're also more difficult to source here because the cartridges are proprietary to the system.

The OP should spend the extra money and get one of these. The cartridges are standard and it's going to be much cheaper over the long run to replace individual cartridges. Buy it when it goes on sale, either at one of Canada's discount mail order supply sources or locally, and it should only cost $200 or so. That's what I paid for mine last December.

 

[Lionfish hunter]

I us the ro/di buddie. Yes you do have to change the filters but mine consistently produces 0 tds water and I have a 235 gallon aquarium. The filters are like 10$ on amazon and I change them like 3 times a year max.

 

[immaman2011]

I know rodi water is pretty cheap and is the cleanest thing you can buy it's 99%+ purified. You can also go the distilled water route which is a little bit cheaper than rodi water, that has like 92% purity. I've learned over the years of doing freshwater to take no chances. So I got 8 or 9 buckets of rodi water from my LFS and am going to salt premix a few to stay prepared. 5gal bucket of rodi shouldn't be any more then $2.50-$3.00. If you're going to use tap water I suggest getting a LOT of prime conditioner from your local LFS, but I've heard that this is bad in the long run and should only be done in absolute emergencies.

 

[Jwise]

I would trow an air stone in the tank to keep oxygen levels up and try to bring the temp of the tank down anything higher than 78 degrees is not safe for fish and introduces a lot of problems it reduces oxygen in the water with higher temp and fish are cold blooded. So with higher temp the fishes blood temp warms up which makes them more active and breath more frequently and oxygen levels are down from higher temp your basically suffocating your fish and not realizing it. I would aim to keep water temp around 75 which is a sweet spot.

 

[Jwise]

In other words you may need to either lower your ac down in the house or get a chiller for your aquarium or remove your heater