It was like armegaddon...

[Samantha]

Yesterday my kids were deciding to take a nap at the same time so I figured I'd clean the tanks and get everyone happy and fed, life was all good. The day goes by uneventful and the tanks look good. Go to sleep that night. My husband wakes me up frantic at 6am saying all our zig zag eels in the tank are dead or dying (we had six in there, been in that tank since they were born four years ago). I jump up and look in, one eel had jumped into a holding tank for a betta, the others were thrashing about, one was lying dead. By the time I had gotten the one out of the betta's area, taken out the dead one and had grabbed the hose to start cleaning again, three more had died... I checked the water peramiters, the temperature, and for signs of disease. Everything looked normal. I don't know what happened to my babies... The bettas (both in floating tanks at the moment) were fine, my algae eaters were fine, and the sole survivor of one eel (one still missing) are fine. I can only speculate somehow something got into the tank that poisoned them yesterday when I cleaned it. I just needed to talk about it, they were my babies. We got their parents from different stores, and when we put them together they had two batches of offspring, all but one (maybe two) are now dead. I am in shock and devestated. /sob

[Cholly]

Soap maybe? Doesn't take much. I feel your pain, about 3-4 years ago, I had a similar devastation, but I know what caused mine, it was soap.

[Samantha]

I bleach my cleaning equipment after each use, but always use extra caution when rinsing them after they soak. Though it could have been I missed a spot of soap after washing my hands in between dealing with the tanks and my kids... Sorry to hear that you know the pain of such a loss, it sucks major donkey b*lls to have something like this happen :-( So far the fish that lived are still doing well, though my last eel (still haven't seen/found the missing one, going back to hunt again today) is very upset over the loss of his family. My husband and I are talking about getting some more baby eels to add to the tank, see if taking care of orphans will ease his pain (and have a secondary tank in case he gets mean with them of course... though I doubt I'll need it.). Thank God at least one lived, I'd have been truly distrought(sp?) if I had lost the whole line.