PDA

View Full Version : Mass suicide?


ycrazyy
01/12/2006, 03:07 PM
So I went away last week for 4 days, leaving my fairly new tank (about 2 months) in someone else's hands. I have a 24g DX and had a gold stripe clown (Ray) and 2 bangaii cardinals (Banger and Mash) in there along with my LR and snails / crabs. Well, the only responsibility this other person had was to come in on Friday and feed my fish. I fed them Wed night and figured I would be home on Sun night to feed them again.

When he fed them on Fri, he said all was well. All 3 fish were happy and swimming around and eating.

So after my excruciating delay getting home from Florida on Sun, I finally arrive home @ 2:15am and run over to my tank to say hello to my 'kids'. I switch on the lights, but none are anywhere to be found! I look some more and find either Banger or Mash (never could tell the difference) half eaten by the overflow. No sign of the other two. Took him out and went off to bed knowing the fate of them.

Next morning, still no sign of either. Not a big tank, so I know the outcome. Anyway, to make a long story short, after work I get home and find the remainder of the Bangaii pair floating (half eaten again) by the overflow and Ray, my favorite little clown (and my girlfriends pride and joy) at the bottom of the tank with his fins eaten off. Anyway, ran tests and as I expected I found 0.2 ammonia, obviously from all of the death.

Any ideas? I'm figuring one of the fish died causing a chain reaction. Since the tank is so small and fairly new, it just couldn't deal with it. I figure this will jump start a new cycle in the tank, so I am going to leave it be for 3 weeks or so, I'm working on building a new tank anyway. I have done a 5 gal water change and will probably do another next week.

viceversabrd
01/12/2006, 03:34 PM
My suspicion would be that your friend overfed the aquarium and caused a spike, and would suspect the fish were half eaten because of the hermits crabs
viceversabrd

eco170
01/12/2006, 03:49 PM
My guess is your tank wasn't totally ready for 3 fish and even the slightest over feeding pushed it over the edge. He would have had to dump the food container in the tank to make it crash that fast, I wouldn't blame the feeding guy just yet. I'm guessing it was a combination of things, not just over feeding. Next time you go out of town for a couple days, dump a few feeder brine in the tank for them. Don't trust someone else to feed your nano. Fish are resourcefull they will find food. Let them hunt the brine.

ycrazyy
01/12/2006, 04:23 PM
Well I told him exactly how much to feed (about the size of the tip of your thumb) of frozen misys shrimp. I kind of had a feeling from the day I brought home the bangaii's that one of them wasn't going to make it, so my first thought actually was that he died.

As for the eaten fish, I know my emerald had a feast. I saw him smiling when I got home.

Oh well, I guess I will wait for the new cycle and just keep working on designing my new starphire nano tank.