Nitraproblem

It happens on occasion.

Where there's a 'die off' in my tank.

Where suddenly something 'in the tank' has gone wrong.

And the casualties are my fish.

Such a die off happened while I was away.

Though the signs of it starting were there before I vanished from home to be up at the parent's place. 

So I wasn't quite surprised to see a lot of my fish...missing.

I mean Danios?

Those guys vanish like crazy. 

But I had like...nearly a dozen when I'd left.

And coming back there was only like two left.

And those two vanished when I officially came back home. 

An inventory showed that I was missing quite a few fish.

Which isn't....good. 

I'd gone from nearly sixty to like...around thirty?

That's a major die off. 

To lose almost half my fish?

Which either means that another fish in the tank has gone aggressive....

Or something in the water was off.

While part of it could be the fish....as two of My Angelfish decided to breed the day I officially got back....

I was thinking it was something in the tank.

After all I hadn't been able to properly care for it in almost three weeks.

And while my roomies are good intentioned....over feeding could have been an issue.

Though really it's hard to overfeed in that tank. *shakes head*

In any case.

I managed to do a water test on said tank....

And discovered that overall it was pretty normal.

Except my Nitrates were rather high. Kinda in the "GO FIX THIS NOW!" high sort of way.

Which when Nitrates are high, usually the best course of action is to a) do a 25-50% water change and/or b) add in live plants to help decrease those levels.

Option B was kinda out of the question as I have goldfish and loaches in that tank and both love to uproot my fake plants already.

There's no question that the real things wouldn't last that long. :S

And option A....was tricky to do.

Because I have an automatic gravel vacuum that can connect to a faucet and drain the water for me into a sink without me having to lug buckets of water everywhere.

Except...the only 'faucet' that can connect to the gravel vacuum is outside.

And it's COLD now.

Like it's already snowed once and weather forecasts it snowing again in the next day or so. 

So I was reluctant to use the outside tap....because I didn't want to cause issues.

Which would mean me trekking pitchers of water back and forth between the tank and the bathroom.....Which is a lot of work when you have a 125 gallon tank. *shakes head*

Thankfully though, my roomie said that it was fine to use the outside faucet so long as it was above freezing when I did so.

Which thankfully today the temperatures were slightly warmer. You know in the 40s. So still cold. 

-As it's been raining all day. 

But warm enough that I could gravel vacuum without doing a lot of effort lol. 

Plus. As an extra measure I bought some Nitra-Zorb which should help to decrease the levels of the Nitrates in the tank as well.

We'll see. We'll see.

But at least the fish are looking a bit more perky now that the water has settled a bit.

*fingers crossed* I can nip this in the bud and restock my tank soon.

Until you next see these words;

I'll be watching the leaves.

Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi