You might have read the thread re my 4ft x 2 x 2 African tank and the unplugged filter. Things have gone from bad to worse. I now have 5 electric yellows plus 3 other fish (hard to tell at this stage but I suspect a couple of borleyis and a blue something left.
In my rubbish are my favourite S ahli (15cm), an 8cm J marlieri and a couple more 11 and 15cm borleyis
When we discovered the unplugged Eheim wet/dry filter, Grant cleaned it out thoroughly, put the media back (it now smelled OK) and restarted the filter. Next day fish were not looking their usual perky selves so we figured it was the media. We unplugged the filter again (all the while the tank still had a fully operational Jebo 819 running) and sterilised the media. We found 3 electric yellow fry in the filter too!
This morning (still not replugged the Eheim in) I saw first the S Ahli, then the other blue dead in the tank and the marlieri missing.
I realised there may be other fish missing as they are hard to count when they hide in the rockwork so decided I had to strip the tank totally to get them all out and do a head count.
Lifted a rock and phew! What a smell. A well and truly dead, by now unrecognisable as it had lost all colour, fish.
Big barrels brought inside and tank stripped. Fish divided up into barrels to prevent too much aggression. As well as finding the other large fish I also caught 1 electric yellow fry about 1.5cm and 21 more the same size as those in the filter - about 0.5cm. The one bright spot in my day.
I now have the tank refilled and have slowly been doing partial water changes in the barrels to prepare them for their total water change.
I have not dared turn the Jebo back on as it will be full of smelly polluted water. Do you think I should sterilise its media as well? This would mean recycling the tank with 8 large fish in it (ranging 8cm - 14cm), or just empty the water out of it and refill it as is? I think I will have to recycle and be resigned to large water changes as it progresses.
I think I will pinch the Fluval 404 off the golden barb's 3ft tank and leave them with a couple of internal Shark filters and use the Fluval through the cycle. What do you all think?
Sorry this is so long but I am so upset. We have had these fish 3 years and they did not deserve to die like this.
PS. Saved the fry and dumped them in a spare small tank. Will need to find a filter for them too. Got several sponge and box filters around here somewhere :roll: