Help. Fish died after automatic feeder dumped in too much food

[Rainbow]

First off, I just inherited the tank (and it's problems) and am just learning.  Saturday night the fish feeder dumped in way too much food.  I scooped a lot of it out but some of it floated to the bottom.  The fish seemed well and healthy. The next morning I had 3 dead fish at the bottom and the 2 left were struggling near the top.  I saved the 2 left.  What happened? Could the food have caused that? Did the water go toxic because if the food?

 

First off I changed 65% of the water about 9 days prior to that disaster, as well as a filter cleaning (fluval 306), when I first got the aquarium. So I wasn't expecting water to go bad so soon in an established tank. My tank is 45 gallons with some anubias plants and major black beard algae.  I am just  learning about testing the water.  The water that the fish died in I did do a nitrate test after and it was high, about 110ppm+.  I didn't do any other tests. 

 

Then I changed almost all of the water and scrubbed off a lot of the algae from things and plants   The nitrates went down to 20 ppm. And today I tested it at less than 5ppm. Today I also tested ammonia at zero, nitrite at zero. 

 

The other thing is I threw out the fish food that was in the feeder during the panic thinking it was bad. Now the remaining fish just spit out the food I bought. Don't know what they ate before but it was also a flake food. Do they just  not like the food? Or are they stressed? They used to eat the other food like crazy. Now, they go for the food but spit it out. 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

I can't say exactly what happened but if your question is can too much food in a tank kill your fish and soil water quality and QUICKLY the answer is absolutely yes. Others might have more technical insight. 

Edited December 21, 2021 by xXInkedPhoenixX

[lefty o]

more than likely the large volume of food caused an ammonia spike as it started breaking down.

[Rainbow]

It happened right before bedtime.  I cleaned as much out as I could reach. If I had known fish were going to die I would have stayed up and done a water change then.

 

The weird thing is that after I did the 95per cent water change the nitrate was still high but there was a lot of stuff floating in the water still. But a few hours later it went down to 20 percent and the next day 5 percent.  I'm think the substrate is really dirty as it has not been cleaned in awhile. The water was really Murky when I first got the aquarium. So maybe nitrates already high and fish food didn't help.

If you touch the soil at all a cloud of murkiness erupts. Originally I thought maybe it was supposed to be like that for the plants.  But last water change tried to vacuum some out.  But still lots there to do next time.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Rainbow

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Sounds to me the tank has been overfed and not properly cleaned for an extended amount of time. If I were in your shoes I'd do daily small gravel vacuuming focusing on one area at a time until I was satisfied with cleanliness. I would also toss that auto feeder.

[Chad]

I'm sorry for the stress and trouble you're going through. Regarding food, I believe the fish will adapt and start eating the food you bought them when they're hungry enough. You probably want to feed sparingly for a while anyway. While I don't have experience with fish not wanting to eat, I have learned (finally) that fish can go a while without eating and still be fine.

[Guppysnail]

On 12/21/2021 at 12:54 AM, Rainbow said:

scrubbed off a lot of the algae from things and plants

Just a side note scrubbing to much too quickly then changing very large water volumes removes beneficial bacteria from the tank. During tank maintenance I do a small section each time never the entire tank. I siphon gravel vac will help remove the rest of the excess food off the substrate. I’m sorry for your loss. If the tank was moved to your house it may have also disrupted how established the tank was. Test regularly and Irene/coop does a great video to determine how often/much water to change. 

[Chad]

I also want to ask the group here, could there be problems with over cleaning the tank too quickly in this case. Could there be old tank syndrome issues at play here?

Great advice @Guppysnail. I've read, not yet experienced, that a very established aquarium is far more resilient to total cleanings (the beneficial bacteria I mean) and hopefully shouldn't cause a cycling crash. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@Rainbow Most of us limit our water changes to about 50% per occasion. You can in certain circumstances do multiple water changes in a day but I would do this based on testing of parameters and let many hours - 2 to 6 - pass before doing another change. With >50% water changes in an unstable but mature tank like this you are opening yourself up to old tank syndrome type problems, please do a google search on Old Tank Syndrome. @ChadI think this is what you are referring to - a tank with little to no maintenance, dirty substrate, now being "over" maintained can crash ie scrubbing all the surfaces at once, gravel vacuuming, and cleaning out the filter all at once. As @Guppysnailindicated do one thing at a time - gravel vac one sectionrather than everything at once until you are confident the tanks biome can handle it. 

I had a similar scenario with my youngest son who wanted to impress his friend ( he is 4) and dumped a half a tub of flake food into his tank and then saw the water cloudy and came crying to me for help. We did a 50% water change focusing on vacuuming up the excess food and then monitored parameters that night and next 2 days. At about 36 hours or so the water parameters started to get wonky - detectable nitrite and nitrate rose >100 so we did another 50% water change. The next 3 days the parameters were stable. I also did not feed the tank for 3 days - they can go without food for a week typically so don't be afraid to fast the fish in a crisis like this. 

I am sorry this happened. These experiences are tough and I wish I could say that it won't happen again but even those of us that have been doing this for 35 years have learning and humbling experiences. My journal is full of them. Keep your head up and keep having fun. The hobby is worth it. 

[AndEEss]

Next time, test your autofeeder before you use it. Set it up so it dumps food onto a countertop or something. 

[Hoi Polloi]

@Rainbow I too inherited a tank some time back and went on an information binge. 

Long story short - even though I did major water changes, my nitrates were still very high. (Honestly, I'm surprise the fish survived at all.) It was traced to the substrate, which had not been cleaned by the previous owner for a very long time.  A good vacuum cleared it up.  

May you have success on your fish journal.

[Rainbow]

That makes sense.  Probably have same situation. Unfortunately the food spillage Probably made it worse. The fish seem ok today though and are less reluctant too eat. One is still a little reluctant. 

[Rainbow]

The colors on the 2 remaining fish have come back and are better than I have seen them. So maybe the water cleanup did the trick.

 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@Rainbowrainbowfish are pretty forgiving but do best and have their best colors in pristine water. I think @Guppysnailand @Hoi Polloihave the right idea address that substrate slowly - maybe every other day for a week do a 25% water changes and gravel vacuum 1/4 of the substrate and after 4 x I think you will notice much more stable parameters going forward. Another option going forward is plant heavy - more than you really think is wise and they will eat up all that stored nitrogen in the substrate plus what comes as you stock it back up.