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Hi there we have had our minnows since December 2004, we do frequent water testing all of which have always come back fine. However this morning we woke up to discover that all of the female minnows had died. The only survivor a lone male.

We had done a water change a few days ago, tested it again yesterday and all came back fine, and yet they were dead this morning!!

It has a filter system, looks from the bubbles a nice amount of O2 is in there, water temp is fine. They are fed a little amount, only what can be eaten in 2 mins. In fact we take the same care over them that we do with our fancy fish which are in a different tank.

They were swimming fine yesterday and eating.

It looked like a mass suicide. What I do not understand is why the male is alive.

The tank is about 25 litres and we only had 8 minnows in it.

Any help would be grateful as we are perplexed.

Gee, you have hit us all with a doozy!

I have bsolutely no idea, its unlikely they all got eggbound at once, or that you have a female-only bug attacking...

it could have been a fluke that it only took out the ladies.

so, lets see.

Look for any parasites or carnivorous bugs in the tank/filter (dragonfly larvae for example)

Think of all the guests you have had over and all the work you have done and see if you can think of any toxins that could have entered the tank.


This sounds like it is going to be a lot of guesswork I think.

Have you made any changes in the tank? fertilisers? plants? substrate? rocks? fish? anything?




For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

I really wish that something had dropped in there by accident, cos at least you can begin to pin point. Nothing has been added, no guests this week. No indoor cats, just our dog who has always been there. Tank is up high which you can only get to if your over 5ft4. So our dog has not been in it and our son who is two did nothing.

Can honestly say that nothing has changed.

Would like to thank people for trying to help.

Will keep you all informed on the male, as I think he is getting depressed.

My old LFS had exactly the same thing and it turned out to be extra Co2 in the tank some thing went wrong with the system caused a lot of deaths.

Anothe case was extra Chlorine was added to the main water suply that killed every fish in the shop.

Both of these cases was overnight (different LFS).

Another guess did you have a power out?

Sorry I beats me that one.

Keith

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I am assuming that CO2 and chlorine would show upin a water test. The day they died I did an extra test and everything was fine. No power cuts.

Well chlorine won't show up in a water test but co2 would show low ph. However if you have no co2 system on the tank I doubt that's the problem. Is this tank unheated? Did you let the house cool down? We just had a storm go through and the temp outside went from 80 to 55F. This was one time I was glad the airflow through the room with tanks was bad as the temp in the room was still near 70 when I got home or I'd be in the same situation you are. Aside from temperature was there alot of commotion in the house? I lost female rams every time my stepdad was home alot cause he walks by the tank so loud or when my stepniece was over even though she never touched the tank. The dog running by didn't help either. Rams are alot more sensitive but something like that could contribute. Were there any anerobic spots in the substrate that could have released gas? Nothing got sprayed near the room with the tank?

Mmm interesting. The tank is near the LCD TV and it has a pretty damn good cinema surround sound. It could be that that did for them. Though why it took so long I do not know. Def not cleaning products as I boycott all P & G etc due to animal testing of house hold products. Only use Ecover and its all natural.

Still hopefully this brain storming might help someone else out one day.

The male is now dead. But that could be due to loneliness. We are not restocking. Just going to stick with the big tank and the 3 fancy fish.