# Overnight Death + Bursting Bellies?



## bdement (Jun 4, 2007)

Hey all, yesterday I did a water change in my 6 gallon desk tank. As usual, I dusted the top of the gravel and sucked out the extra food and stuff. After I dechlorinated, I put the temperature adjusted tap water back in the usual way. Fairly quickly I noticed the 10 Harlequin Rasboras rising to the surface to get breaths. Even the one Otto came closer to the surface. The filter was running fine and there was plenty of surface turbulence. At first I thought I had stirred up the remnants of a bacteria bloom from a few weeks ago. To be safe, I disconnected the DIY CO2.

This morning I came in and all 11 fish were dead. One strange symptom I noticed was that many of their bellies had swollen, and a couple had even burst.

What could have made their bellies burst like that?


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## Borntofish (Nov 30, 2007)

Maybe it wasn't their stomachs but it was their swim bladders?? Very weird occurence, sorry for the loss....


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## bdement (Jun 4, 2007)

Borntofish said:


> Maybe it wasn't their stomachs but it was their swim bladders??


Absolutely it could have been. I don't know enough to be more descriptive than "their belly areas were distended."

Update: Many of the cone snails have started to emerge and are heading for the surface, a few have already poked their "heads" out.


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## skinns (Apr 8, 2004)

Ouch, this is horrifying. I had a 'Week of Death' episode in my tank last year. Turns out the water company had added alot of extra chemicals due the drought we were having down in here in Georgia. You could actually smell the difference in the water.


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## modster (Jun 16, 2007)

ouch.. i guess thats why people use RO water.


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## bdement (Jun 4, 2007)

skinns said:


> Ouch, this is horrifying. I had a 'Week of Death' episode in my tank last year. Turns out the water company had added alot of extra chemicals due the drought we were having down in here in Georgia. You could actually smell the difference in the water.


That's pretty interesting. This may be why you mentioned it, but I'm also in Atlanta. My situation is in a 6 gallon tank, and after that comment I'm afraid to do water changes in my big tanks at home now. I'm going to call the water authority and see if what you say is true in my area.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Did you use a bucket for your w/c? Before I found out about the hose method I used a 5g bucket. Not knowing that my son had used my FISH bucket to wash his car, I did my normal w/c. Within 5 minutes all my fish but 3 were dead and all my plants melted! He had used simple green to wash his car! Just a thought.

So sorry!:sorry:


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## bdement (Jun 4, 2007)

Tex Gal said:


> Did you use a bucket for your w/c?


I used the same bucket I've been using for about a year that has only been used for that purpose.

The cause has to be in the water that was added. That would explain the immediate reaction. I'm calling the water authority today (since I'm writing this after midnight).


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## puttyman70 (Aug 7, 2007)

Please post what you find out for the other folks in the ATL. Is this a desk at an office or home? If its at work maybe they did some work on the building.


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## lauraleellbp (Jan 31, 2008)

My best guess is hydrogen sulfide- did you smell anything like rotten eggs when you were cleaning your gravel? If you hit an anaerobic spot, that's about the only thing I can think of that would kill your fish that quick plus send your MTS running from the gravel?


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

I have seen similar reactions when the water I used had too much gas dissolved in it. The fish acted like they could not breathe. I lost about half the fish in one tank, but I removed the bodies before they could burst, so I do not know if that would have happened. 

The other time I have seen sudden death with a water change is when the declor was left out of the new water (Oops!) but you have covered that. 

Definitely contact the water company; perhaps they were doing something to the water, or repairing a pipe and doubled the chlorine/chloramine dose for a few days. Perhaps they are using a different water source (well, lake, river...) and the water chemistry is different. 
Have you done any tests?


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## bdement (Jun 4, 2007)

Well the water people have passed me from person to person and nobody ever calls me back. I'll keep trying though.



lauraleellbp said:


> My best guess is hydrogen sulfide- did you smell anything like rotten eggs when you were cleaning your gravel?


Hmm, actually, not at the time. But when skinns made his first post, I smelled the water and it certainly wasn't normal. I can't think of any reason why your theory couldn't be true, and several reasons why it could. For example, many of the plants are melting away now, and that's a big sign I think...


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## bdement (Jun 4, 2007)

I think I've all but completely ruled out the possibility of water contamination. I did another large water change the other day, and the melting of the plants has significantly decreased. They even appear to be recovering already.



lauraleellbp said:


> My best guess is hydrogen sulfide- did you smell anything like rotten eggs when you were cleaning your gravel?


I'm just about positive that Hydrogen Sulfide is the answer here. The tank is an Eclipse System 6, so there's only a moderate amount of flow in the tank trickling in from the top. There's hardly any, IF any, circulation near the gravel.

I had a bad outbreak of MTS in this tank that I eradicated with Had-A-Snail (copper), so I have a feeling that a bunch of dead snail bodies rotting away in the substrate with no circulation led to anaerobic activity down there. During that particular water change when my problems started, I was making a concerted effort to stir up the gravel and must have released a pocket of it.

Another lesson learned!


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## lauraleellbp (Jan 31, 2008)

That would totally do it! At least you figured out how to avoid it in the future- learning stuff the hard way happens to all of us


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