had a loss

Bigjohnnofish

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Apr 15, 2010
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Perth, Western Australia
anyone else had this type of experience before ?

i had removed 30% of water from a rack of 9 and was refilling from my reservoir going from tank to tank with top up hose....

missus gave me dinner while i was doing this.... home made fries and steak pie... i was eating fries while moving hose from tank to tank....

i dont think i put my greasy hand in a tank but maybe i did....

topped up all good...

3 days later i woke up to all baby marble b/n dead in a frysaver and all albino b/n fry also dead in a frysaver next to each other in 1 tank... water was ever so slightly hazy.. .so i tested for ammonia , nitrite , nitrates after i removed dead fry from frysavers... i got 0 , 0 , 30ppm..... scratchin my head - what caused this die off? looking at water surface and im thinking i could see a tiny oil haze around the bubbles from the filter... i did 50% wc straight up and 4 hours later did another 50% wc... the L066 colony wasnt happy puffing and fanning and looking at me prob thinking WTF have you done :)
next day 1 dead old 66 female... no marks on her - gills looked fine... scratching my head - water has tiny haze to it again.... so another 50% wc..
whole time the ninja shrimp in the tank havent seemed to be worried at all and no noticable deaths in the shrimp.... another 50% wc a little while ago and tank looked clear... hour later it is hazed up a bit... tested the water for ammonia nitrite nitrates and got 0 , 0 , 5ppm... the othe 7 x 66's in the colony dont look overly happy but arent puffing any more....

any ideas other than me putting greasy hand in the tank ????
 

Brengun

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Apr 22, 2009
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Burrum Heads, Queensland, Australia
If it was a lot of oil it would be seen on the surface. If it was chicken or onion salt flavouring it would alter the tds and or pH.

I have a zeb tank slowly growing an annoying cloud over a few weeks but I think its from over feeding. I can be good for a few days and then I forget and they are such little fish they never eat all of the food. I need to remember where I put my shrimp pellets as that's one of their favourite foods and most all of that gets eaten.
 

Nat's Fish

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Nov 14, 2011
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Very strange mate. I'm conscious of washing suncream off really well when I walk home from the beach but you think you'd have to pour some cooking oil in there to kill them.
I've had random tanks go cloudy for a day or two and then go back to normal & I couldn't figure out why
 

leisure_man

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Mar 24, 2014
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3rd Rock from the Sun
That is why I dont like manual water change. It may not be the greasy fingers, did you handle anything else (chemical wise) before doing the water change.
I always make a point of washing my hands (up to my elbows) before and after messing in the fishroom.


Here is what the back of one of my aisles in the fishroom looks like.

 

Bigjohnnofish

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Apr 15, 2010
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Perth, Western Australia
im always pretty conscious of washing hands and arms before changing...

thing i thought was weird was i did 18 tanks - 9 to a rack and one side of the room was done before i ate... they were all fine.... and its only the middle tank in the other rack of 9 that got effected... not nice to say it was only 66's as they have 260's to the left... 264's above... 046's below... 007's , 600's , 134's , 174's and another 66 tank in the rack...

tank has still been cloudyish for last couple days but testing showed no issues in ammonia , nitrite , nitrate , ph ,kh , temp... so im not too worried about it...

if i can find a sponge filter to squeeze some bacteria out of i will dump that in there and im predicting cloud will disappear... bacterial bloom of some sort...

just finding a sponge im happy to squeeze out of - have to go to the back room.... i have a hard and fast rule of nothing out back comes in the front... mainly because i have a truck load of guppies out back and we all know livebearers are more likely to carry something undesirable... after many years getting good stock and cleansing that stock of any nastys im reluctant to introduce anything new...