Narrowly averted disaster in the shelly colony!

blobaugh

blobaugh

Well-Known Member
Yesterday I morning I walked into my office, where there is a 20L with a small (but growing!) neolamprologus multifaciatus colony and noticed one of the males swimming funny. I watched for a few minutes, but the rest of the tank seemed fine.

That evening, after dinner, I went into my office to watch the shellies for a bit and ALL of them were swimming erratically! Flopping about as is they were fish out of water.

I had been fighting blue-green slime for a while and thought maybe it crashed the tank, so I started an emergency water change. Then I put my hand in the tank and it was freezing! The heater had given up the ghost.

New plan- I filled a 5 gallon bucket with tank water and tossed my small travel heater into it. I then proceeded to quickly, but carefully, rip the tank apart and find every fish.

Luckily only two had died in the tank. All but one seem to have recovered in the bucket. That one is the oldest male.

Tragedy narrowly averted!

I had already planned to pull all the decor out of the tank this weekend to clean the slime off, so while the fish were out I took the opportunity to deep clean. Decor, sand, filtration, everything came out and got cleaned. There is still a bit of the blue-green slime in there, so I still dosed the tank.

The shellies are still in their bucket, till tomorrow. I want to verify the new heater is working and at the correct temp before putting them back in.

Stressful day, but in the end it could have been a lot worse had I not gone in to look at the tank that night. Silver linings right?
 
blobaugh

blobaugh

Well-Known Member
I spoke too soon :(

8 more shellies were dead this afternoon. :’(

This is not cool. Is there anything else I can do for these little guys?
 
sir_keith

sir_keith

Legendary Member
Contributing Member Level III
How low did the temperature go, and how long did you take to bring the fishes in the bucket back up to normal temperature? IME even sensitive Tanganyikans can survive mid-to-high 60's for a few hours if you gradually bring the water temperature back up to normal. It's sudden changes in any water parameter, including temperature, that are lethal to these fishes: they evolved in a highly stable environment, and are poorly adapted to deal with fluctuations. So the natural inclination to bring them back up to normal temperature ASAP is exactly the wrong thing to do, as it will stress them at last as much as the initial slow decline.

At this point there isn't much you can do beyond trying to minimize stress as much as possible. Adding more aeration is a good suggestion; I would also turn the lights off, and not feed them until they show signs of recovery. It's really up to them now.

We've all had heater failures, and prevention is better than cure. Unfortunately, a small tank like a 20L can lose temperature pretty quickly. I have found it useful to touch the outside of each tank every time I feed the fishes; your fingers are pretty sensitive to temperature, and it's easy to detect above or below normal temperatures in your tanks, hopefully before they become problematic. Good luck.
 
blobaugh

blobaugh

Well-Known Member
It was around 63F. For at least a day, likely more. I usually check the temps multiple times per day. For some reason I had not checked :(.

As far as bringing back up to temp, it was over about 30 minutes, BUT that is for the first few. The last few fish that I caught went right into the warmer water. It takes longer that one would think to pull out a couple dozen shells, especially when many of them were almost completely buried in the sand.

At this point I know there are 2 doing well. I have seen them out several times now, poking around for food. Both males. There is a female that has come out a couple times still doing the flopping thing. There may be one more, not positive. Hard to tell with them hiding in shells what the true toll is at the moment. There were 21 before this happened, and a few very young babies. The number of bodies I found do not match the total count. There may be others in shells, recovering or dead.

Heater failures certainly do suck! My last failure was in 2015 in the 30. Woke up and it had cooked all the fish :(. I think this time is worse because I watched the fish suffer.
 
finray56

finray56

Well-Known Member
You might want to get an aquarium heater controller ! I use heater controllers on all of my tanks, it provides some peace of mind so definitely worth the extra few bucks.
 
blobaugh

blobaugh

Well-Known Member
finray56 said:
You might want to get an aquarium heater controller ! I use heater controllers on all of my tanks, it provides some peace of mind so definitely worth the extra few bucks.
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I have a heater controller on the big tank. It has a low and high temp alarm. Good idea to have that on ALL the tanks though it seems. I think I have a spare around here some where. Thanks for the reminder!
 
blobaugh

blobaugh

Well-Known Member
Some pleasant news this morning. I saw more shellies!!

Dunno if they were hiding and recovering, or spooked with the big change, or what. The tank is sitting next to my desk and at this moment I can see FOUR of them!!!! Woohoo. That gives me hope that others made it too and are still hiding.

I may have seen five, but that is not confirmed.....oh wait! A fifth just came out :D.

My depression about this tank is improving :)
 
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