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all my fish died what and how should clean my tank?

1K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  Varkolak 
#1 ·
I had a mixed tank. it had convicts, tinfoil barb,Tiger barbs, 2 suckerfish ( I big and 1 small) I have an automatic feeder, Emperor 400 filter gravel bottom, 2 big rocks making a cave and a fake rock tower. I also have the thing that you connect to a faucet to clean the gravel. how Should I go about cleaning it out so I can bring in new fish?
 
#2 ·
Why did they die? Disease? Or something else?
 
#3 ·
I don't know what happened I went on vacation for a week I came back and they were dead. Something I forgot to add we ran out of water cleaner and I told my father to get some more and he said they would be fine, that went on for about two months. Went on vacation I came back and they're dead.it looked like a feeding frenzy happened I and the tank was 30° higher.
 
#4 ·
Do you have chlorine in your tap water? If so and your father did a large water change without the dechlorinetor while you were gone then it might have been at toxic levels right out of the tap and killed all the fish or most of them, then the auto feeder continued to run pumping more food then any survivors could eat into the tank. The combined breaking down of food and dead fish would would made the ammonia so high it finished all any survivors.

Another option is the heater broke or your house got too hot and baked them all but same basic principle

In a nutshell if that sounds like what happened just take your tank outside and rinse everything well with a hose, make sure you get all the food out of the gravel and then bring it back inside and fill it up with water and let it sit for 48hours to let the chlorine dissipate. Test your water parameters and if your ammonia nitrite and nitrate are in check you should be fine because a rinse will still leave a lot of your bacteria in tact as well as the bacteria that was in your filter.

Take it slow reintroducing fish 1-2 at a time and watch your water parameters, if it looks like your tank is trying to do a mini cycle then start doing 30-50% water changes daily until they level out
 
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