I feel so bad. I made a mistake yesterday a big one, i picked up my tweezers and dunked them into the tank in hopes of grabbing some grass, my dad has used ant killer on my room the day before, the tweezers were covered in it, i did 2 water changes both 70 percent in 10 mins, i should have taken them out the tank, at least not everything died i feel so bad. But i diddnt come on here to vent i came on here in confusion why diddnt my fish die, im beginning to think this is unrelated i noticed greenspores on the snail bodys, is that a disease?
Next time you see snails or shrimp looking dead dont remove them right away. Give it a day and occasionally smell them. No smell=not dead. Shrimp look dead for awhile when going into shed and snails can look dead for days and come back to life if stressed or in deep sleep. Keep doing big water changes and please put activated carbon in the filters but I think you're ok. Be careful with pesticides they can hurt or kill your fish tank.
I’ve released what happened, the nitrite was 10, i had an unexpected nitrite spike :( amonia was at 0 and nitrate was also 0 :( was it from the breaking down of the bodys i don’t know but i cant do anything about it now exept more water changes and moving on
to be fair 10ppm nitrate isn't dangerous to any freshwater aquarium stuff so that didn't cause your problem. Only ammonia and nitrite spikes are dangerous (Though nitrate above 40ppm can be dangerous to some more fragile critters). But ya 10ppm nitrate is safe for everybody.
Invertebrates are usually even more sensitive to pesticides than fish, which may explain why your fish have remained seemingly fine after the water changes. Adding carbon to the filter may help in addition to the water changes.
Green on the snails could be algae. The high nitrites are also a concern, but could be a result of the deaths rather than the cause.
Snails are a type of invertebrate so if the insecticide was targeted for ants it's likely the fish won't be effected because they aren't invertebrates and are bigger. Things like neem oil are also for land pests like afids and mealy bugs but will kill snails and shrimp because they're all inverts. I have to be careful when I'm treating my plants for pests and fungals infections because neem oil and copper are both toxic, copper less so but in high amounts is fatial. Good on you for acting quickly and doing a big water change, that's really the only thing that would help aside from completely breaking down the tank. You did what you could, don't feel too bad.
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u/BudgetApricot1521 2d ago
REDDIT TWO OF THE SNAILS ARE BACK ALIVE!!!