Tragedy has struck

[Hevydevy]

I knew my filter was on the fritz but I thought I'd fixed it. Took it out last night, gave it a good clean etc, put it back in and it seemed to have improved a heap.

Then I woke up this morning to find that it had died completely during the night and five of my eight fish were dead.

The other three were also struggling - gulping for air at the top.

I lost five of my six cichlids which is a real shame including one of my two favs - my electric blue. My other fave, my Synodontis, was still alive.

Anyway, I rushed straight to the aquarium and spent up on a high quality filter which I installed about four hours ago. When I got home my three fish were still alive.

Well, the good news is that I've saved them. They've stopped gulping and are starting to swim around playfully again.

The three that have made it are my:

Synodontus
Red Jewell
Rainbow Shark

I'm a bit upset though - I've moved house twice in the past three months and they all survived that, only to die because of a dodgy filter.

I'm sure others have experienced this too.

[Dave66]

I'd suggest investing in an additional filter. The benifits are many; cleaning and a failsafe are the obvious ones.
Might I ask why you don't aireate your tank? Obviously without a filter the gas exhange is too low.

Dave

[Hevydevy]

Yeah I think you're right, I'll invest in an air pump. No idea why I haven't done it before anyway.

Plus I probably had two too many fish for the size of my tank so that's a lesson as well.

May add two more in a while once I make sure the water quality is back to where it needs to be.

[Lady Hobbs]

I'm so sorry for your loss. So aggravating to do everything right and then a piece of equipment fails you.