Big Mistake! Learn from my screw up😥

[Jdogtrainer]

Oh my goodness everyone. Please learn from my nearly fatal mistake.

I bought new driftwood to scape my 75 gallon and was using my established 29 gallon to get a head start on soaking the wood.

Put two wood sections in last night. I only rinsed them lightly before adding them. This morning I noticed the water was very cloudy but didn't put too much thought into it. Wood has weird reaction in water sometimes, but I really never saw this before. Still didn't alarm me.

Tonight after a super busy day working and doing a bunch of housework I looked at my 29 gallon and ALL MY FISH WERE FLOATING/GASPING at the top of the tank. 😱😱

I checked my filter and it was NOT RUNNING and their was a bacterial bloom so thick it was coating the "arms" of my Pearl Gourami. 😱🤢 My filter had been gunked up with it completely. (Granted I did really need to clean my prefilter sponge but it was running last night!!)

I immediately removed the new wood, prefilter sponge, and filter floss to increase flow. I drained out 10 gallons and replaced it with fresh water. It took about 15 minutes to see the fish begin to recover. But they look normal now. 😐😔

I'm still worried as heck that there's been too much lack of oxygen for a few of them. 

This was my first experience with such a thing. Please be careful of sudden clarity issues when you add new wood to your tank and make sure you negate issues by being sure your filter is running well😬😬😬

 

 

[Odd Duck]

Good job taking immediate action once you realized it was a problem.  Likely saved your fish.  If you don’t have an airstone running, you should consider adding one, at least temporarily.  Wood can definitely be tricky.  I have a tiny 2 gallon tank that had a very well seasoned, long sunk piece of wood with a bunch of Buces glued on it.  I moved it to this tiny tank with a nice little sponge-turboed HOB plus a nano sponge from ACO.  A few other plants to try to minimize algae growth.

I never could get this tank in balance until I removed that piece of wood.  I’ve got a couple Buces on a small piece of lava rock and more Vesuvius swords now, and it seems to be staying in balance much better.