I wish I'd stayed in bed this morning

Discussion in 'General Chat' started by PBirkett, Aug 26, 2004.

  1. PBirkett

    PBirkett VTEC Addict

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    Woke up for work this morning and was greeted to a rather morbid sight. We keep Malawi Cichlids in a four foot aquarium. Yesterday, the fish were somewhat listless, going to the top of the tank for air, and not really feeding. The spraybar which sprays water into the tank had fallen slightly and so we raised it again so the water circulates properly for oxygen.

    The fish seemed to perk up.

    This morning though, I awoke to the sight of them all being dead :cry: well, all except one of the catfish and one of the main fishes. That is, by my estimates, around 40-50 fish dead, all pretty sizable, mature fish.

    The spraybar had fallen into the water, but the temperature was alright and the filter was still working. My theory is that the fish were starved of oxygen because of this, and that the tank was probably overstocked - mainly due to the fact that when we put the fish in, we underestimated how big some of them would grow. The tank always looked very "busy", but this morning, their corpses lined the entire bottom of the tank, with only one listless malawi cichlid and one listless catfish swimming around the corpses. This might sound daft, but I find this a wee bit upsetting. :(

    God help anyone who pisses me off this morning! :mad:
     
    PBirkett, Aug 26, 2004
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  2. PBirkett

    badchamp Thermionic Member

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    Paul,

    Yeah sounds like an Oxygen prob.

    Out of curiosity, whats the catfish ? I presume a Synodontis of some description. I used to have a Synodontis Cameleopardis !! :D Only one I've ever seen. Gorgeous fish but I woke up one morning to find it constantly swimming at full tilt into the tank sides, when I got back from work it was dead.

    Incidentally its recommeded to keep Malawi's crowded as they are quite territorial and the crowding helps to reduce the aggression.
     
    badchamp, Aug 26, 2004
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  3. PBirkett

    nsherin In stereo nirvana...

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    Paul, sorry to hear that, mate. Not a good sign. Sounds like you took every step to take good care of them, but a freak incident caused this unfortunately, mate.
     
    nsherin, Aug 26, 2004
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  4. PBirkett

    michaelab desafinado

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    I know nothing about aquariums and keeping fish but 40-50 fish in a 4ft tank sounds a tad crowded to me :eek:

    Michael.
     
    michaelab, Aug 26, 2004
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  5. PBirkett

    PBirkett VTEC Addict

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    Thanks fellas. I cant believe how gutted I am about it. I never thought it would hit me this much, but when I saw it this morning I felt sick, and I just feel so gutted now.

    Badchamp, the catfish I only know as being an "upside down catfish" - Synodontis nigriventris apparently according to google. It was alive when we left this morning, but I am sure it'll be dead when I get back. Either that, or it will be fat :D

    Its really gutting though, although I appreciate its probably hard for most to understand. Not to mention the money value of the fish (into the hundreds of pounds, I'd think).

    Michael, as badchamp says, you should overstock Malawi's to tame their aggression. However, we did underestimate how big some of them would grow, mistaking one type of fish for small shoaling fish, and they quickly grew bigger than everything else in the tank - and there was about 15 of them.
     
    PBirkett, Aug 26, 2004
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  6. PBirkett

    badchamp Thermionic Member

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    Paul,

    You might be lucky with the Syno as they are a bit more hardy than the Malawis.

    The Nigriventris is the well known "upside down" cat but a more fitting cat for a Malawi/ Tanganyika tank would probably be a S. Multipunctatus (silver with black spots). More of a "classic" Syno shape, longer and sleeker than the Nigriventris. Lovely looking fish, bit more expensive though. Not quite as gregarious too . Does get a bit bigger than the Nigriventris which is actually quite small species.
     
    badchamp, Aug 26, 2004
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  7. PBirkett

    Sid and Coke

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    Sorry to hear about your dead fish, know how much hard work goes into maintaining a Tank. Here is mine: Sids 60 Gallon Fish tank

    i used to own Convict Cichlids and so know that ou need to keep the numbers up to prevent fighting. 40-50 fish seems like gross overcrowding to me though unless you are really on top of the water changes. For that kind of stocking level i would reckon that something in the order of at least 1 x 25% water change per week would be a minimum , possibly two.
    As long as the spay bar was still circulating the water in the tank then Oxygen deficiency is slightly unlikely. The water is oxygenated by circulation i.e. a constant movement of water at the the surface so that gas exchange can take effect. My hang on the back type filter sucks water at the bottom of the Tank and spit it out at the top.

    You need to remove the dead fish and do a 25-50% water change immediately. If you wish to save the remaining fish. I would guess that the reson the fish died was due to Toxins, namely Ammonia, Nitrite and to a lesser extent Nitrate. Ammonia and Nitrite being the real killers. That many fish in such a small area will excrete an awful lot of ammonia, over stocking requires the enthusiast to be really on the ball. Do you have, or use any water test kits, these might give an idea of what went wrong. Look for Ammonia and Nitrite, in a well established tank like yours these should read zero.

    When i first set up my current tank I ended up over stocking it, basically due to wanting so many nice fish in it. It was really labour intensive to keep on top of things though. Fish don't last forever and i have had a few fatalities myself. what i did though was to just not replace them. Even if i don't do a water change for a whole month my tank is big enough and the stock level low enough now to have negligable effect, I have never seen an Ammonia or Nitrite level higher than zero.

    I would imagine that your shoal of Cichlids looked pretty spectacular, perhaps now is the time to have a good think about which way you want your tank to go, It is certainly big enough to have just one or two slightly larger species , rather than a whole shoal of smaller fish. Basically give it a good clean out with a gravel sucker, do some water changes, check the chemicals and start again.

    Hard luck mate, :( better luck next time, :)
     
    Sid and Coke, Aug 26, 2004
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  8. PBirkett

    PBirkett VTEC Addict

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    Well, I guess I will find out when I get back whether the catfish survived. I was really quite surprised to see it still swimming around amongst the chaos that was littered all around it. I think you are right, the tank was very overstocked, and the dead fish that came out last night was perhaps the first sign of what was to come. I just think it was weird the way they were so healthy last night (or at least, seemingly) and yet it was like a fishy graveyard this morning.

    Ultimately though, it will not be up to me whether it gets restocked as its really my parents tank, they paid for it, but I loved the fish just as much as they did and I would happily help with the cost of restock and help with the clean up job. I have a feeling they are so gutted about it, they feel like throwing in the towel.
     
    PBirkett, Aug 26, 2004
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  9. PBirkett

    PBirkett VTEC Addict

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    Well, got myself home at about 4:15 and started the grizzly task of fishing out the dead fish. They were just everywhere. It looked like the fish equivalent to a nuclear holocaust! It certainly looks like a failure of the oxygen supply, the fish appear to have suffocated, but there is survivors. The 2 upside down catfish have survived and maybe 3 of the cichlids are clinging on to life, and one tiny baby believe it or not. The tank now has about 6 fish left in it, most of which are now in hiding (probably unsurprisingly). Done a water change, and will test the water tomorrow.

    Big doubts now as to whether it'll be restocked, but if its got anything to do with me, then it will be. It was at least, slightly heartening to find that at least some survived. By my reckoning, around 50 fish were killed.

    We now realise though that tank was well overstocked. It was our first crack at keeping Malawi's and we genuinely did not realise that some of the fish in particular would grow as big as they did - some were originally believed to be small shoaling fish, until that is they grew larger than anything else in the tank.
     
    PBirkett, Aug 26, 2004
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  10. PBirkett

    nsherin In stereo nirvana...

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    Paul, good luck with the water test, mate. Glad you learnt something out of the experience.
     
    nsherin, Aug 26, 2004
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  11. PBirkett

    PBirkett VTEC Addict

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    One other thing to mention that I was surprised about: The smell in the lounge when I got home - honest to god, it smelt like I had a corpse under the floorboards :eek:
     
    PBirkett, Aug 26, 2004
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  12. PBirkett

    Sid and Coke

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    Hello again Paul,

    Pity you couldn't have removed the dead fish beofore you went to work mate. At 25 deg a dead fish will start to rot pretty quickly, dead rotting fish = even more ammonia ! Another thing is that bacteria will then start to get to work on the dead fish , using up more oxygen an yes you've guessed it more ammonia. Any dead or dying fish get dispatched pretty quickly in my tank.

    I very much doubt that you will suffer this fate again, however it might be an idea to get a small power head in the corner to get some more water circulating.
    On a similar theme, many folk think that the pretty bubbles often seen in an aquarium oxygenate the water , they do but their effect is very minimal. It is mostly cosmetic and looks nice. ( it is also very noisy, a bit like somebody running a hair dryer next to your head all day long i would imagine ). The main source of gas exchange is by water at the bottom of the tank being circulated so that it comes into contact with the layer of air sitting on the top of the water. Oxygen then gets dissolved into this water. For this reason in a given amount of water a short, wide shallow tank is better than a long, narrow, deep one. Even though they might contain the same volume of water, the short wide, shallow tank will have a greater surface area on top of the water for gas exchange ( co2 out, o2 in ).

    Your fish have had quite a shock and the survivers are just that , survivers, unfortunately they may yet succumb to the effects that killed the others. The water change that you've just given them will greatly increase their chances of survival. For furure reference this should always be your first course of action, get the bad water out and some good water in, and fast ! You also can't tell how toxic water is by looking at it unless you test it. eSHa make a very good 'dip strip' test. most of the fish shops around here use them. A liquid Ammonia kit and a dip strip will be all you need, 5 minutes maximum to test all the important parameters.

    By the way you haven't been spraying insecticide around have you, just an idea as there are so many wasps and bugs about at the moment. Spraying fly spray or any other insecticide in the same room as a fish tank is also a reciepe for disaster.

    (I know that you will already know a lot of this stuff, i thought i'd include it for the archive though ;) )

    I hope everything works out for you.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 27, 2004
    Sid and Coke, Aug 27, 2004
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