I've been keeping tropical fish for 3 years now, and had a 15 gallon tank with 1 Spotted Rafael Catfish, 3 Red Glass Barbs and 3 Tiger Barbs. 2 Years ago, I had to move the tank to a new apartment, and did so with no fish losses.

I am now in the fortunate position of moving in with my fiance. Yesterday, we moved my fish tank over. I matched water temperature at the new location carefully, kept the fishies in tupperware wrapped in a blanket. Floated them in their containers for an hour to make sure they would acclimate properly.

All of the fish died one by one, with the catfish finally succumbing tonight. The tank absolutely *reeks* of ammonia. (My test kit is still at my old place and there wasn't time to test before all of them were toast.)

The catfish's fins turned red, and he was litterally bleeding from his skin. The other fish all looked paralyzed - wound up stuck on the bottom gasping before they died (which was fast). I'm extremely confused as to what went wrong, as I have moved the tank before with no problems and havn't lost a fish in over two years.

I'm especially worried because the paralysis and skin bleeding are signs of bacterial infection are they not? Is this tank likely a lost cause at this point or do you think it will be safe for fish again after it recycles? (I assume the ammonia smell means that the tank is recycling?)

Thanks for any help you might have, I'll post the water conditions after I get my test kit tomorrow.

Does anyone know what the "turning red" is? Might there have been a really large PH difference between the two apartments water supplies?

From what I've been able to find it does sound like an ammonia spike as a result of re-cycling of the tank. I would suggest letting the tank go through the cycle before you re-stock it.
Sorry about your losses and good luck when you re-stock.

Welcome to TFC, sorry you had to find us under such unhappy circumstances.

Welcome ProudAardvark! Sorry to hear about your losses...It sounds like you really put a lot of effort into making sure the move went smoothly for the fish.

Ok...while dtroup makes a very valid point that it may have been an ammonia spike due to the biofilter crashing....However, because of how quickly it sound like the fish died, I lean more towards a poisoning....

Ok, now here comes the part of the post where I have to ask you a bunch of silly questions...please don't be offended by them, and I certainly don't mean to infer any disrespect by the questions....ok, here goes:

Was a dechlorinator or water treatment used? Which one? Was it ammolock?

Did you use anything to wash or clean the tank (and anything that went into it)besides water?

At any time, have any products been sprayed in the air near the fish or tanks? (hairspray, airfreshener,deoderant, perfume, febreeze, paint, insecticides etc.)

You mentioned containers that you brought the fish over in...What had they last been used for and what exactly were they? Had they ever been washed with any detergents? What did they originally contain?

Have there been a lot of rainfall/flooding/mass meltoff in your area, or the area where your water supply comes from?


The skin bleeding you describe would most likely be a condition called Hemorrhagic septicemia, it can be caused by a number of different bacteria, and is usually brought on by poor or contaminated water or physical injury...you need a good antibiotic to treat the affected fish, I would skip the melafix/primafix and go straight for the pharmacuticals....before that though, if the tank smells like ammonia, it is safe to assume that the water NEEDS to be changed and treated with a good water conditioner that handles both chlorine, and chloramine...( I like Prime and Amquel, I do not recomend Ammolock)...I would go ahead and use a "double dose"...

Oh...and more likely than not, a good antibiotic will probably "uncycle" your tank. I can't remember if Nitrobacter is gram negative, or positive, and which antibiotics affect which) at this point, dosn't really matter you just have to get rid of that infection ASAP....If you use broad spectrum antibiotics, it's possible you'll loose your good bacteria, so remember to keep up with testing and water changes untill it gets stabalized....

Thanks for the replies, not offended by the questions at all :D

I used a product called "Stress Coat" by aquarium pharmacuticals ltd. to condition the water. It says it works on both chlorine and chloramines. I wiped down the sides of the tank with a sponge fresh out of the packaging, and after the fish started dying I double checked that the sponge packaging didn't have any detergent in it. God only knows what the old tupperware had in it though - I rinsed it all out carefully with just water before the move and they didnt smell or look unclean.

There was a bunch of white hard water buildup along the top of the tank, which I scraped off. Some of that may have gotten into the water. The old apartment was built in the 20's and had old rusty pipes, wheras the new one was built in the 70's. I dont know what effects that would have on the water quality - you would think it would be cleaner if anything.

While moving, I had to sit the empty tank down (I moved it with like a half inch of water still over the gravel to keep it wet) it my old apt. lobby. There has been some repainting going on nearby, which you can smell when you walk through, but the tank was litterally only there for 5-10 minutes while moving a car around front.

Yeah, I thought the skin bleeding was bacterial too - it spread like wildfire, the poor catfish went from black and white to bleeding red all over in about 12 hours or so. (It looked like he had ebola - pretty gross actually)

It looks like the biofilter crashed and something incredibly toxic got into the tank somehow, all accompanied by an extremely virulent bacteria. I have no clue as to what caused the paralysis. The weakest fish (one of the male tiger barbs) died within 3 hours of the move.

I tried to save the catfish by raising the water temperature a few degrees and adding some aquarium salt, but it obviously too late.

Thanks for your help... I'm thinking I'm just goign to let the tank sit empty for a few weeks and then plop in a feeder guppy and see what happens. This whole thing was kind of shocking - I was honestly prepared to lose a fish or two because of stress from the move, but the idea that they would all be dead within 24hrs hadn't really occured to me.

Wow...Sorry to hear. =(

Sounds like something got in the water. I've had cases of that before when house cleaning products got sprayed into the fish tank >.>. Or like the others said, you had a huge ammonia spike because of the number of fish you have.

Let the tank build up good bacteria so it can deal with the ammonia and nitrates *about 3-6 weeks* Good luck with restocking! :)

And welcome to TFC! :woo: