Temperature (F degrees): 73.0
PH Test: 7.0,
Nitrate (NO3) ppm (mg/l): 0
Nitrite (NO2) ppm (mg/l): 1.00
Ammonia ppm (mg/l):0
Number of Fish Removed:0
Temperature was 73 degrees today which is really bad! I forgot to plug in the cooler yesterday after unplugging it to clean the filters. The water felt so warm today when I came in, and I completely freaked out! The fish are acting stressed, staying low to the aquarium floor and breathing heavily, which is apparent by their strained gill action and the way they are over exaggerating each stride of their operculum (the part that covers the outside of the gills). So far we haven't lost anyone and fingers crossed, we won't lose anyone, but right now their temperature is 23 degrees over the normal aquarium temperature, which is extremely stressful for them. The reason why they are breathing so heavily is because there is so little dissolved oxygen for them to breath in now that the temperature has gone up. As temperature rises, dissolved oxygen levels drop, and since salmon are so used to cool temperatures and flowing water with lots of oxygen, this is a tramatic change for them. As soon as I found out that the temperature was so high I was quick to plug in the cooler and do what I could to lower the temperature. The temeperature is slowly dropping back down to 50 degrees, but it is going to take a couple of hours at least. In the last five minutes it has dropped approximately 1 degree F. I'm so upset with myself, I cannot believe I forgot to plug in the aquarium! The filters had a lot of waste built up on it today, so I cleaned those and those along with the bottom of the aquarium. We decided to hold back on feedings until the temperature is back to normal, we actually did try feeding them once, but nobody was interested in the food at all, they were too stressed. We also decided to hold back on water changes, fearing that adding another stress factor may add to the problem. The temperature has probably been about room temperature for about half a day, so that's a really long time for the fish to be stressed out, hopefully they will be able to recover. The temperature is now 71.9 F degrees, the temperature seems to be dropping 0.2 degrees every couple of minutes. I just looked it up and it looks like the fish can tolerate temperatures of up to 60 degrees farenheit and after that the temperature can be fatal. We are 10 degrees over our temperature limit, so we are definitely in the red zone right now. If we can get the temperature back down to 60 F degrees then we should be okay.
1:30 pm - the temperature is now 50.3 degrees which is normal now. It's been three hours since the cooler was plugged in. We added ice packs (3 in total) to reduce the temperature as well, now that the temperature is normal, we can only wait and watch and see, and hopefully everyone makes a full recovery. Fish are still staying near the bottom of the tank, a couple are actually laying on their bellies on the aquarium floor, they are not falling over or anything, but their not moving around very much, either. The majority of the fish are swimming, they look stronger than they did earlier; their gills are not moving as much but they are sticking pretty low still, probably just trying to stay cool. I hope everyone will be alright! I'm never unplugging the pump again to change the filter, the risk is far too great, it's not worth it! Now that the fish are bigger and stronger, they shouldn't have a problem with being sucked in to the pump, so they should be okay. Fish have not been fed yet, still waiting until everyone is acting normal again. The water is slowly becoming clear, now that the pump is going and the temperature is low again, it's not as yellow as it had looked. Around 3:30pm I'll check and see if the fish look like they would be able to handle a water change and some food. If they don't look well enough I may hold off on both until tomorrow. I'm surprised everyone is as well as they are.
3:30pm: Checked water quality, nitrite has gone up from 0.75ppm to 1ppm pH went down to 7.0, Ammonia and nitrite are both zero. Fish are still acting stressed, their scales are looking rough, their coloration on a few scales is darkening, the fish are refusing to eating, and the water is still fairly yellow.
