Massive crash!

Yesterday I went to my in laws to clean their tank. When I walked in I could smell death. I was told the filter and pumps went out during the morning or late the other night. So when I got there, it was HOURS since the filter stopped and only one little power head was on. This is a 30 gal tank. When I started cleaning it, I found the yellow tail blue damsel dead, then the six line wrasse, 5 large snails, one cleaner shrimp, all dead.

What remained alive was 3 clown fish, one big damsel, a shrimp and 2 hermit crabs.

BUT!!!

I took the remaining livestock and put them into a holding tank with pumps and with water from their main tank...since I didn't want to further stress them. It took me a few hours to clean up the main tank. But then, the remaining fish started to die off!!

I told my in laws that I wasn't sure if the fish were going to make it due to their main tank being without much water movement and filtration for SO many hours.

My question is. Did I do something wrong or was it just a mater of time before the all the fish would have died due to the stress and waste in the water...perhaps burning their gills??

Your thoughts?

 

You probably should have added some Amquel or prime to the water before increasing the 02 level. With the fish dieing in the tank the ammonia level quickly rises. When the ph of the water is raised (addition of oxygen to the water) it quickly makes the ammonia more toxic to the fish. Neutralizing the ammonia before adding more aeration may or may not have saved them. Sorry for the loss.

 

The ammonia would get to the other fish eventually from the dead fish. I cant believe all of that happened within a couple of hours without filters tho. I mean it possible, but just doesnt seem right.

My tank lost power for over 24 hours last week and i didnt have any battery back up or anything. everything is fine in it.

 

i guess the tank did have quite a bit more fish than mine does though so that doesnt help things.

 

30 gallon? Should have 3 fish. 1 fish per gallon IMO. Yes, size matters, etc.

Sorry for the loss, and agree that something else is going on here if the filter, a cannister I presume? was off for less than a day?

So, there was no power loss, but the 'filter' quit?

HOw do you 'clean' the Dt? By cleaning the Algae on the glass? Are you then vacuuming out the sand/gravel? Is it a DSB?
HOw long had the system been running?

 

Yes another reason I always favor small bioloads. In the future they may want to consider fewer fish.Sorry again that really stinks.(no pun inteneded)

 

Im wondering if a fish hadnt died and the clogged up the filter causing it to fail or something like that.

Either way, sorry to hear about the loss of the fish.

 

+1 to all above,low o2,ammonia and an overstocked tank = death,sorry for the losses.

A battery backup air pump is very cheap insurance as well,my 55 just survived a very recent 4 day power outage just using Prime and my airpump.I had 0 flow and 0 filtration for that amount of time.

 

i agree i think there was another problem in that tank with water quality, before the pump went. Detritus? Bacteria? the pumps being off for such a short time shouldn't have killed fish.