Too much Gammarus = dead fish?

[Talb]

I have a 10 gallon heavily planted plant tank and recently the Gammarus
population exploded. Hundreds of Gammarus swimming everywhere even
during the day when the lights were on. I didn't keep any fish in the
tank. To whittle down the Gammarus I added 8 checkered barbs less than
an inch in size to the tank.

Within 3 days, the Gammerus population was pretty much wiped out to the
point where only I could spot only a few shrimp streaking to the bottom
when the lights went on in the morning. The downside was that 6 of the
barbs croaked within those 3 days. Water parameters were all ok. Is
it safe to say that the fish ate themselves to death? The upside is
the Gammarus population is at the level I want it to be (visually at
least) and the 2 surviving barbs look like they have almost doubled in
size a month later :)

[NetMax]

"Talb" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>I have a 10 gallon heavily planted plant tank and recently the Gammarus
> population exploded. Hundreds of Gammarus swimming everywhere even
> during the day when the lights were on. I didn't keep any fish in the
> tank. To whittle down the Gammarus I added 8 checkered barbs less than
> an inch in size to the tank.
>
> Within 3 days, the Gammerus population was pretty much wiped out to the
> point where only I could spot only a few shrimp streaking to the bottom
> when the lights went on in the morning. The downside was that 6 of the
> barbs croaked within those 3 days. Water parameters were all ok. Is
> it safe to say that the fish ate themselves to death? The upside is
> the Gammarus population is at the level I want it to be (visually at
> least) and the 2 surviving barbs look like they have almost doubled in
> size a month later :)


Yes, fish can die from over-eating. I had a customer with snails and I
suggested he try a trio of Clown loaches. He decided to try one loach.
He returned the next day with the dead loach, but didn't want a
replacement or credit as the loach did exactly what he couldn't do, rid
the tank of every snail.
--
www.NetMax.tk

[Mean_Chlorine]

Thusly "NetMax" > Spake Unto All:

>Yes, fish can die from over-eating.

This is true, but has happened to me exactly once in 30 years of
aquaristics - a heavily inbred guppy female ate till she, literally,
burst. Apart from that one I have never, ever, had a fish eat till it
just keeled over, and I feed my fish till they're full.

I'd be much, much, *much*, more inclined to blame either disease or
bad water quality. In the cases described you'll be drastically
increasing the bioload of the aquarium, the same as if you'd killed
the amphipods/snails with poison and let them rot in the tank, and the
filter bacteria probably couldn't keep up.

[NetMax]

"Mean_Chlorine" > wrote in message
...
> Thusly "NetMax" > Spake Unto All:
>
>>Yes, fish can die from over-eating.
>
> This is true, but has happened to me exactly once in 30 years of
> aquaristics - a heavily inbred guppy female ate till she, literally,
> burst. Apart from that one I have never, ever, had a fish eat till it
> just keeled over, and I feed my fish till they're full.
>
> I'd be much, much, *much*, more inclined to blame either disease or
> bad water quality. In the cases described you'll be drastically
> increasing the bioload of the aquarium, the same as if you'd killed
> the amphipods/snails with poison and let them rot in the tank, and the
> filter bacteria probably couldn't keep up.


Perhaps *scratching chin*, I've personally only had one fatality due to
over-eating (that I'm aware of), and that was a case of dried pellets
expanding to force their way out through the side of the fish. Not
exactly representative of what happens in nature, but they do shows signs
of distress after over-eating, so the danger is real. The probability as
you say, is low. In the case of the single loach in 24 hours, I don't
see an ammonia build up occurring that quickly, but any number of
water-shock parameters could have stressed the fish, which coincided with
its distress of consuming an escargot tankful. We can only hope that it
died with a smile on its face ;~).
--
www.NetMax.tk

[Talb]

Mean_Chlorine wrote:
> Thusly "NetMax" > Spake Unto All:
>
> >Yes, fish can die from over-eating.
>
> This is true, but has happened to me exactly once in 30 years of
> aquaristics - a heavily inbred guppy female ate till she, literally,
> burst. Apart from that one I have never, ever, had a fish eat till it
> just keeled over, and I feed my fish till they're full.
>
> I'd be much, much, *much*, more inclined to blame either disease or
> bad water quality. In the cases described you'll be drastically
> increasing the bioload of the aquarium, the same as if you'd killed
> the amphipods/snails with poison and let them rot in the tank, and
the
> filter bacteria probably couldn't keep up.

Original poster here. I thought of that before I added the barbs to
the plant tank. I tested for ammonia and nitrates during the first 4-5
days and the water quality was ok. Never saw any signs of distress in
the barbs during the morning but after checking in the evening I'd see
a couple floaters. All I kept thinking was

(hundreds of Gammarus) / 8 fish = ???

Disease maybe but they were quarantined and the local pet shop where I
bought them has had a good track record over the years.

Next project? The plant tank is about 4 years old and has dozens of
snails. Given my most recent experience I'd better not add any zebra
loaches from the big tank. I am kidding because I added the 3 loaches
a couple years ago to the big tank to wipe out the snails (they are
good looking fish too). They took less than a month to clear out the
snails. Where did you think I got the idea to add the barbs eradicate
the gammarus? ;) Snails plucked from the plant tank are their only live
food source now.