Huge Problem

[Pollitz]

All of my fish died and I have no idea why. I checked all of my levels and they are fine. This may sound stupid but I did have a pretty good gas leak yesterday and the smell was extremely strong by the fish tank. Do you think that may have caused it?

Any help would be appreciated.

The tank has been set up since January 07

[partobe]

yes I def think that could have caused it. Do you have a skimmer? Ive been told if you can smell it, it can get in your water. I'm moving at the end of aug and I spoke to several tank maintenance men and they all told me the same thing they wouldn't move the tank into the new apt if it still smelled like paint. I'm really sorry you lost your fish.
Patrick

[themissinglynk]

Originally Posted by partobe

Ive been told if you can smell it, it can get in your water.

A friend once explained the sense of smell as this:

The sense of smell is your body using chemistry to determine what the tiny particles that come off of something are.

IE: If you can smell something, it is because tiny little bits of that something are floating around in the air, entering your nose, and reacting there.

This totally grossed me out, because I then realized that when you walk into a very smelly bathroom, there are actually minute urine and fecal particles going up inside my nose. Gross.

But - since we all work so hard to ensure a nice "air exchange" in our systems, it reasons well that we are mixing ANYTHING that you can smell into the tank.

That's my bit of knowledge for the day.

[Loverotties]

Yes that can get mixed in with air in the gas exchange.

[Twitterbait]

Sorry for your loss. It sounds very likely that that caused the problem. I would recomment doing a large water change and then let the tank lay fallow for a while to let any remaining gas dissolve. bummer man.

[Brent Cone]

Well i think you know what happend very sorry for your loss.
Brent.

[Doug1]

Not sure if the gas leak was the culprit, but certainly a strong candidate.
Not sure how natural gas( assuming thats what leaked) would affect the tank, I believe in air breathers the gas displaces oxygen and interferes with blood / oxygen exchange

[jph]

now you got me all worried!
we just cleaned out living room carpet yesterday (you know, rent a "rug doctor" in the local grocery store)
and the cleaning producs that we used smelled spretty strong.

the fish were still alive this morning.


J.

[partobe]

jph
just to be on the safe side why dont you put a cpl of fans in your window facing outside and blow the smell out.

[jph]

Originally Posted by partobe

jph
just to be on the safe side why dont you put a cpl of fans in your window facing outside and blow the smell out.

we did it with the windows open
the smell was gone once we stopped cleaning, it was only when we were using it.


J.

[Pollitz]

Thanks for all your posts!

Pollitz

[partobe]

ur welcome Pollitz and like I said before I'm really sorry for your loss.
Jph how are your fish?

[hng]

You could also make a "filter" for the air intake for the skimmer so that the air is sucked through filter floss and activated carbon before it gets mixed with the tank's water.

[Pollitz]

Should I use some activated carbon in my tank to help clean up any gas in the tank? I'm afraid to put any fish in the tank.

Thanks,

Pollitz

[Kevin1000]

I don't know squat about how natural gas would impact your tank .. but major water changes and running carbon are std "after disaster" procedures and exactly what I would do.