[Squidword]

I discussed what all the info you guys gave me with dh. He wants to know to salvage our current fish, to iridescent shark (which I think are soon to be goners) 1 gouramis, 3 bloodfin tetras, crayfish, 2 pleco, 2 tiger barbs and 1 platy should we bag the fish and completely empty the tank out? Like right now? We had 4 deaths in our tank since the cleaning we did over the weekend. UGH! So frustrating. We do not currently have the nitrite/nitrate tester but do have the PH tester which was soaring over 7. The ammonia is like 1.



So do I empty out the tank?

Julie

 

[Lupin]

Hi Julie.:wave:

The only advice I can give you is to bag each fish by species. 2 plecs will have to be bagged singly. Reason for this is that they often fight and their spines will puncture the bag. Try to double bagged or even triple bagged the plecs with soggy newspaper in between the plastic bags so that the spines won't puncture the other bags.

They crayfish should be place in a bag alone. No fish should be placed with it as crayfish can attack fish even in plastic bags.

Place all the bags in dark paper bags to darken the whole environment. This will lessen stress on fish. You may consider placing them in a large styrofoam box if the travel to your lfs is a long way. Climate temps will often harm the fish because of temp changes inside the plastic bags.

Good luck.

 

[Squidword]

Blue, thanks. We were thinking of trying to salvage our remaining fish by doing a water change. Leaving less then half of the old water in the tank. It will be a drastic change and shock to the fish, however my tanks PH is 7.2 and ammonia is a little over 2.0 :shock:

Do you think the almost complete water change will be in any way better or are we just going to kill them off faster?

 

[Lupin]

Do you think the almost complete water change will be in any way better or are we just going to kill them off faster?

If they have been used to large water changes, I cannot see it as a problem since I also do large water changes myself. 2.0 ammonia is quite high and will certainly kill your fish soon.:blink:

 

[Squidword]

:BIGweepy:


Okay, so we will do a big water change now. My blue crayfish, who dh says is the culprit of this by killing the crab, shedded today. How do I handle this? Do I net the exoskeleton and then replace it when big water change is complete? Crayfish is very soft right now.