I am gutted.
Did water change at 12.00, had to be at airport to pick up hubby at 1.45pm. Did a 50% on both tanks – do that every day now. Left for airport at 1.30, got home about 3.00pm. 281 Lutino / Pale Tiger Oscars dead. All from the same tank, no casualties in the other tank. Some still alive, put straight into a bucket of conditioned water with an airstone..and have survived so far.

Here are the readings from the killer tank – 30G
Ammonia 1ppm, Nitrate 10 ppm, Nitrite 5 ppm, pH 7.0 Temp 24degreesC
Two sponge filters, two small in tank filters, external over tank filter.

Here are the readings from the other tank – 40G
Ammonia 0.5ppm, Nitrate 0 ppm, Nitrite 2 ppm, pH 7.0 Temp 24 degrees C
Two sponge filters, one large in tank filter and Aquis 1200 canister.

The only thing I have done different is the diet change this week onto pellets. I have been vacuuming up what they don’t eat after 5 mins – I vacuum at least 4 times a day. The in tank filters are rinsed in tank water at least once a day – and today I did it at the waterchange - I rely on them more for mechanical filtration and leave the external filters alone to develop the bio filtration.

What I noticed was the smell of the pellets – they are made mostly from Mackeral and phew did the tank and everything in it smell. When I opened up the external filter it was just sludge. Because the food is smaller than blood worms and because they have not been gulping it down like bloodworms, heaps of it has ended up in the filters. My theory is today was breaking point for the external filter and I had an ammonia / nitrate spike which was so quick the fish just died. Unfortunately I was not home at the time and have lost most of them.

I cleaned the other tank filters again and decided to open up the canister – it too had heaps of sludge but it is much bigger than the over tank filter on the 30G. Even so, after two big water changes using Prime and filter rinses today the tigers are “off”, they are slower, gasping and not pacing for food. I am not going to feed them until tomorrow and then it is back to blood worms.
Any different ideas from you guys? Anything you would do right now that I have not done?
I’m sorry to Mum and Dad O, I’m sorry to their brothers and sisters, I am sorry to you guys who have shared the babies with me. I feel like an idiot.
Shaz

i'm shocked and sad about it but what can we do.... it just happened.
don't be too hard to yourself... we knew you love them to the max...

i'm used to that when i was a boy raising milkfish in the fishpond.
we can lost millions of fry and have no harvest for a while...
babies were more sensitive than fingerlings.... any slight changes
could be fatal.....

chin up and wait for the next spawning....

btw... how many fries survived?

PAUL wrote:


Thanks Paul...still feel terribly responsible. Have about 30 of the light ones left and all of the tigers...Still have around 400 fish to manage. In a way it was good for the ones who survived because now I can split the tigers into the two tanks and manage the lutinos in a 2 footer until I sell them. Shaz x

farout shazza it will be all good
these things happen out of the blue
chin up =] sorry to hear =[

Do you think that it was the accumulation of the new food in the filter? I am racking my brain? The readings, although not good, were not extremely high, but considering they were only a few hours after a 50% pwc, they must have come up quickly...do you think that was it??? Am I just doomed because there are so many of the little buggers?

ummm might have been disturbance in filter and caused it
to push into tank? maybe

Gutted for you shar...you where doing so well
I think it could have possibly been the build up in the filter... I would clean the filter more often now to avoid this happening again...just make sure its cleaned with tank water.

Chin up you still have a hell of a lot of babies to look after and at least you didn't lose all the albinos

Are you using a floating pellet...if so how do they manage to get into the filter?

It's unfortunate but one of the reasons why Oscars have so many offspring is that only a very small percentage make it, even in ideal water conditions in the wild.

They certainly put on some size in such a short amount of time.

STAFFIE wrote:


Thanx They didn't eat the floating pellets so I got sinking ones...bad move..still tempted to go back to bloodworms..shaz x

aus-car wrote:


The tigers are bigger...eating machines...

sharyn wrote:


Best thing to do would be starve them for a day then try them on the floating pellets again....if still no luck starve them for another day. At some point they need to start eating floating pellet weather they like it or not

STAFFIE wrote:


Best thing to do would be starve them for a day then try them on the floating pellets again....if still no luck starve them for another day. At some point they need to start eating floating pellet weather they like it or not [/quote]

Better they get hungry than get dead!