Dying fish linked to abnormal bubbles?

N

nuvercx

Hello,

My tank has been set up for about 5 weeks. I tried putting a damsel in there after 3 weeks. it died the same night. I tried again after another 2 weeks. It also died.... within 4 hours..

Recently I've been seeing these bubbles on top of the tank.. There were so many this time because my sump was a little low on water and air bubbles were being put in the tank from the return.

Even when the return isn't causing bubbles, there are bubbles on top of the water in the sump...

Any ideas what's causing the bubbles?

Thanks

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We need way more information on your tank, how did you cycle the tank and what was the source of your LR/LS. Current parameters and if you cleaned the tank with anything prior to setting up....do you have kids that have access to the tank....running a skimmer or not.....how are you acclimating the fish??????


Cheers,
 
I didn't use anything to wash out the tank except water. I bought some of the packaged live sand off someone that hadn't been used but was moved from its package to a bucket and was sitting for a few weeks. I tried to start the cycle by letting a shrimp decompose for a few days. I had base rock that wasn't alive in there until recently adding about 20lbs of very active LR from a well established 100g+. Fish are being acclimated by drip method for about an hour.. No skimmer...No kids... No tank parameters right now.. I'll try to test it tonight.

Also.. brown algae has become very active lately spreading quickly..

Thanks for the response
 
That certainly looks like some kind of soap or lotion got in the tank. You use any hand lotions regularly or did you happen to wash your hands right before working in the tank?
I would do a big water change and run some carbon and a polyfilter.
 
Yeah... that's what I was thinking... soap bubbles..

I don't use lotions.. and don't wash my hands before handling anything in the tank. If I had washed them within the hour I will thoroughly rinse them... Guess I'll have to drain all the water out and put new water in. :|
 
@nuvercx wrote:
I bought some of the packaged live sand off someone that hadn't been used but was moved from its package to a bucket and was sitting for a few weeks. said:
Not saying this is 100% your case but you never know what had been in that bucket prior to the LS being put in it. If you have damsels's dying (which I didn't think was possible) and bubbles appearing, I would highly suspect the LS. I would play it safe and would vacuum it out, replace it with known good live sand, 100% waterchange, run carbon and poly and just start over. Just what I would do if I was just starting out and had this issue. YMMV

Cheers,
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Despite those bubbles and a few damsels dying... I have multiple starfish that have been in there for 5 days and are fine... Also some pieces of something that was stuck to my LR is starting to sprout up with new growth...

I think I'm going to wait a while before I tear everything down

Thanks for all the responses
 
QUESTION!

Does anyone think burning incense / oil burners in the same general area of the tank could have caused the problem :?:
 
@nuvercx wrote:
QUESTION! Does anyone think burning incense / oil burners in the same general area of the tank could have caused the problem :?: said:
It could. I run an open top and am very careful as to what gets sprayed or used anywhere near the tank.
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Not for sure that the smoke would cause the suds. I did have an issue with a sandbed transfer that had been lying in a tub for a while and it produced the same suds you are talking about. It was deadly and actually killed my fish
 
@mtraylor wrote:
Not for sure that the smoke would cause the suds. I did have an issue with a sandbed transfer that had been lying in a tub for a while and it produced the same suds you are talking about. It was deadly and actually killed my fish said:
That's exactly what has happened. Good thing I restarted and threw all that sand out.


Thanks for the replies.
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Well sorry to hear that happened. Its one of those things that you wont forget. I'm actually going to be transferring my sand from my existing aquarium over to my new one pretty soon. This time i will take off the whole top layer of sand about an inch or so and keep it to seed my new aquarium. I will then take the rest of the sand to the back yard and rinse it until its clean. Then I will place it back into the new aquarium and then place the top surface sand I saved on top of the newly washed sand.
 
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