HELP did my usual 30/50% water change and now everyone is dying!!!
 

I've lost 4 out of 6 blue tetras, once glass cat. My kuhil loaches are swimming the surface. O my... what happened!!! I always do a little over 30% of a water change. Tank is a 55gallon, running two 350gph filters, temp is 80 degrees constant. I use prime after each water change. I've had this tank running for 5+ years. Never had this happen before. I use the same bucket to refill. All levels test normal. Even my elephant nose (he's small) is swimming mid level. I don't know what to do. Pull them into another tank??? There are no boiler alerts out. I have a15g snail tank available for them, 78 degrees, the water is tinted do to some new contorted filbert branches. please help.

Can you test your water paramenters and post those?? I had this happen to me one time and it was two things. The city water supply had bumped up the ammonia in the water and I also had inadvertently used a "bad" garden hose. If your water paramenters are checking out fine I can't imagine what it could be.

nitrate 10
nitrite 0
gh 75
kh 180
ph 7.8

Ammonia zero??

I'm out of that test :( in over 5 years i do this water change bout once every 1 to 2 weeks. never has this happened. can my tap water cause an ammonia spike?

only fish not effected are a couple of female guppies and crown tail female betas. the rubber nose pleco seems ok, but hard to tell. i tried moving two of the tetras cuz they were floating hoping the tinted water would help, they are still alive but fighting :( the glass cats started swimming in tight circles. the tetras went to the surface nose up and would float down switching to their back

This is EXACTLY what happened to me and I lost three adult Dennison barbs. The city tap water went from 0 to 1 ppm over night. I now have to dose Prime at three times the recommended dose when using my tap water for water changes. In your situtation ammonia poisoning is what it sounds like.

I wish you were able to test your tap and your tank for ammonia.

I have more prime, should I does more? Should I move the remaining lives ones to the snail tank or will that be more stress. I did not do a water change there. I can pick up a test tonight, Petsmart is still open. I'm just not sure what to do to try an help them.

I would add more prime then get a test for sure.

Thanks for your help. Sorry I did not thank you sooner, kind of a shock seeing them all die so suddenly. I've done weekly and biweekly water changes for my 8 tanks for years. I wonder why now?

I went to Petsmart for a test. The ammonia is at zero. Could it maybe have been super high Chlorine or something? I'm going to take a sample up to a LFS I've been going to for years. He'll run more tests for me.

I added a 2nd dose of Prime, but the elephant nose didn't seem to come around. I moved him into the 15g snail tank as a last resort. Finally he is swimming around and looking more normal. Back in the 55g two black khuli loaches came out of hiding and are swimming normally. I moved the guppies and female bettas as well, even thou they didn't seem bothered, I didn't want to take the chance. The tetras and glass cats where the first effected along with the elephant nose, then the khuli loaches (not black ones). When the glass cats died, they spun in tight circles. The tetras went to the surface, nose up, then floated back, eventually dieing on the ground.